Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec Del cast. Dude, dude,
Speaker 1: du dude, dude Due. Once upon a time there was
Speaker 1: a podcast I'm bailing. I'm bailing on the bed. I'll
Speaker 1: keep going in this podcast, dude, dude Due. This podcast
Speaker 1: was really was really mean to a lot of movies.
Speaker 1: And one day a poor little movie walked into the
Speaker 1: podcasts Castle and the and the poor little person said,
Speaker 1: please don't hate my movie. I tried my best, do
Speaker 1: do do? Okay, okay, like this amazing when ball and
Speaker 1: orchestra can be anything? Where is this going? Okay? Sorry,
Speaker 1: so twenty one I'm crying. The podcast was like, get
Speaker 1: away from here, go away. Your movie sucks and we're
Speaker 1: not going to give it a chance. And can you, um,
Speaker 1: what's something about my beautiful music? No, that's amazing. Um
Speaker 1: So anyway, this movie, this little movie was like, please
Speaker 1: don't turn me away, Please give me a chance. In
Speaker 1: the podcast is like, no, I cary to make it quieter.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't know what's happening anyway. So
Speaker 1: the moral of the story is that the podcast was
Speaker 1: really mean and it had to learn well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: didn't have to learn anything. What am you saying? Do
Speaker 1: do do do? Do? Do do? Get ready the next
Speaker 1: song starting do do Do Do Do? Do Do Do?
Speaker 1: Do We do? Little Podcast isn't quiet podcast? Every episode
Speaker 1: like the one people Good Self on the podcast Little
Speaker 1: Hosts waking up to bachtel cast backtel Castel movies. There
Speaker 1: goes the whole movies. I know every line of dialogue
Speaker 1: in this movie, Like it's so there's movies I could
Speaker 1: in a in a pinch, I could close my eyes
Speaker 1: and basically watch, you know, because you've just seen them
Speaker 1: so many times. I could probably do this with like
Speaker 1: movies like Beauty and the Beast and like obviously some
Speaker 1: d coms, just like movies that are just like whoop
Speaker 1: just there forever Yes same. This and a few other
Speaker 1: Disney Renaissance movies are that for me as well. This
Speaker 1: was one of the four main ones I watched on
Speaker 1: repeat as a kid. Bell was my favorite because she
Speaker 1: had brown hair and she could read, and I could
Speaker 1: relate with those things which I think we said Okay,
Speaker 1: So first of all, Hi, this is the Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: We'll be our podcast, be our podcast that doesn't make
Speaker 1: make sense. This is the Bechtel Cast. My name is
Speaker 1: Caitlin Darante, my name is Jamie Loftus, and this is
Speaker 1: our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 1: using the Bechtel test merely as a jumping off point
Speaker 1: to initiate a larger conversation about representation in cinema. This
Speaker 1: is kind of a special episode for for us because
Speaker 1: we are redoing, revisiting, returning to four episodes throughout this year.
Speaker 1: We haven't really decided when, but we thought this would
Speaker 1: be a fun place to start. Yes, of episodes we
Speaker 1: did early in this series that we're like, we can do,
Speaker 1: we can do better. We just it's been and it's
Speaker 1: because it has nothing to do with anything other than
Speaker 1: that they are four year old episodes and there's just
Speaker 1: kind of more to say now. Yeah, they were all
Speaker 1: episodes that like among the first like ten episodes we
Speaker 1: ever recorded and released and believed or not. It was
Speaker 1: before we really knew what we were doing. So our
Speaker 1: guests are and were amazing, and then we were just
Speaker 1: like we we missed with the four movies, especially, we
Speaker 1: just missed things that seem very obvious to us now
Speaker 1: that we just van did not mention at the time.
Speaker 1: So we're redoing them. And Beauty and the Beast is
Speaker 1: our first episode that we are redoing throughout the year.
Speaker 1: Later in the year, it's gonna be What's Matt Max
Speaker 1: Fury Road The Matrix, which I will watch and people
Speaker 1: will leave me alone about people. Ever, well, people will
Speaker 1: also riot that you people. I mean, I will be
Speaker 1: a different person once I've actually seen The Matrix. Um,
Speaker 1: I will be red pilled. Uh and then uh, and
Speaker 1: then it's killed Bill. We're gonna redo our first episode
Speaker 1: ever So, but this is we're doing Beauty and the
Speaker 1: Beast to kick off the year. It's uh, it's a
Speaker 1: if not a fan favorite, a movie that everyone on
Speaker 1: the face of the planet has basically seen, I think so.
Speaker 1: And since we last covered it, there's been a really
Speaker 1: bad version of it. They came out almost four years
Speaker 1: ago at this point and made it was like that
Speaker 1: whole Okay, we're gonna be talking about kind of a
Speaker 1: Smartgese board of Beauty and the Beast adaptations. We're grounding
Speaker 1: it in the classic But um, I watched the two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen one for the first time today and was
Speaker 1: just like, holy shit, a billion dollars can look like anything,
Speaker 1: you know, like how that movie made over a billion dollars? Wait?
Speaker 1: Did it? Yes? It made one point to Billiawn Dollard
Speaker 1: made so much money, and and then you're Emma Watson
Speaker 1: goes like she sounds like tea pain, like she's so
Speaker 1: auto tuned. You're like, what is going on? A billion dollars?
Speaker 1: And that's why I feel pretty firmly convinced. Once Disney
Speaker 1: did that, once bob Iger Boby Gare was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can make a billion dollars off of that. I
Speaker 1: guess quality is not a problem. And and that's why
Speaker 1: all the reboots are just like bad because they don't
Speaker 1: have to be good because they made a billion dollars
Speaker 1: with with the worst one that I've seen. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen them all, but I've seen a couple of them
Speaker 1: and impauty of the pieces. So yeah, it's yeah in theaters.
Speaker 1: I saw it bravely. I saw in theaters I was
Speaker 1: contributing to the billion other people. I'm kidding. It doesn't
Speaker 1: caused a dollar to see a like a billion dollars.
Speaker 1: That's so many dollars, so many dollars um the Disney reap.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the Dumbo one, nor the Cinderella one
Speaker 1: from I think or I haven't seen Maleficent either, but
Speaker 1: I've seen like a Laddin. Lion King is low key.
Speaker 1: I kind of liked. I have only seen the first Moleficent,
Speaker 1: but I was like, the first Moleficent was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: It was like diet wicked kind of. I have not
Speaker 1: seen the Cinderella one and won't. And I did see Tumbo. Wow,
Speaker 1: thank you. It was a mess. It was a disaster.
Speaker 1: It was so bad. I haven't seen most of them.
Speaker 1: I've seen. I have seen the Lion King. I've watched
Speaker 1: the new Mulan once the paywall was brought down. Oh right,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that one either. It's fun, it's fine,
Speaker 1: it's but there's a lot of controversy around. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a whole other we'll get to that one eventually.
Speaker 1: There's you know, there's it's okay. They're all essentially none
Speaker 1: of them are as good as the original, and they're
Speaker 1: all like generally like not very but the Beauty, but
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast was like about, like, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: what was what happened? Everything went wrong everything, and then
Speaker 1: they've made a billion dollar Like I just no one
Speaker 1: learned a damn thing. Well, you know what a damn thing.
Speaker 1: Something I need to be reminded of often is that
Speaker 1: nostalgia is a powerful emotion and people will make decisions
Speaker 1: strong enough. But I mean that explains I think that
Speaker 1: explains why a billion dollars was made. Yes, that's why
Speaker 1: a billion dollars worth of chances being taken. But like
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I mean, I'm curious in the future
Speaker 1: when children who saw the reboot then process it later
Speaker 1: they're like that, what was that? What was that all about?
Speaker 1: It was so it was wow, Wow, I love Luke Evans.
Speaker 1: And then at the end, you know how like a
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to one, the good one. But the
Speaker 1: there there was that huge show made of like Lafo
Speaker 1: Josh Gad's character is going to be the first out
Speaker 1: gay character in all of Disney history, and then you're like,
Speaker 1: when is that going to become clear? And then it
Speaker 1: never does. But there's this shot at the end where
Speaker 1: like La food dances with a man we don't know
Speaker 1: for a second, and they're like, yeah, it had happened.
Speaker 1: It was it. Wow. I mean so many parts of
Speaker 1: the movie were a slap in the face, but that
Speaker 1: was that was a special one. That was a special
Speaker 1: slab one of many issues I can't And then I
Speaker 1: also like, when The Beast came to life, I don't
Speaker 1: know who I thought that actor was going to be.
Speaker 1: But I had this flash of rage where I was like,
Speaker 1: who the fuck is that there was at the end
Speaker 1: where the whole cast is supposed to all of a
Speaker 1: sudden be a very famous person at the end, Right,
Speaker 1: you've got Emma Thompson, You've got Audre McDonald, You've got
Speaker 1: you Greg, You've got McKellen mckellin, Stanley Stanley, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: Stanley tu cheese and and then there and then like
Speaker 1: and here's the Beast, and you're like, who that? Who
Speaker 1: the funk is that? I don't know who even was
Speaker 1: that man. I couldn't tell you. A bunch of people
Speaker 1: are about to like swan dive into my mentions and
Speaker 1: be like, hey was in I didn't know who that
Speaker 1: man was. He wasn't famous enough to be in the movie.
Speaker 1: He wasn't famous enough. I can't. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I can't say famous today. He was not famous enough
Speaker 1: to be in the movie. And that interpretation of the Beast,
Speaker 1: it was horrible. He was so mean, he was so
Speaker 1: and he looked like shit. C in that movie was
Speaker 1: a zaster And oh my god, Bell's dress. I okay, wait,
Speaker 1: I have to pull up a tap because I looked
Speaker 1: up the costume designer for the movie, very like well
Speaker 1: regarded costume designer. Um, I will find what her name was.
Speaker 1: But it was the I think maybe the most I
Speaker 1: parti ist dress for Bell. Like her dress, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I wore that in the like that
Speaker 1: exact dress in like the second grade, Like what is
Speaker 1: going on here? It was nominated for Best Costume Design
Speaker 1: and seeing at the Academy Awards a billion dollars, I
Speaker 1: don't even know what's going on. Absolutely Cosaster. Jacqueline Durant,
Speaker 1: very well regarded costume designer, has done some of the
Speaker 1: most iconic Like she did she did a tone that
Speaker 1: she said, some of the best costume designs of our lifetime,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, and then she went to I party. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't tell. You don't know. We don't m hmmm,
Speaker 1: did we? I don't think we've said what the Bechdel
Speaker 1: test was yet the Bedel test, I guess the beck
Speaker 1: Doel test. Do you want to say it or should?
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm so mad about it. I'm fine.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to say it is. It's a mediametric created
Speaker 1: by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel that requires that two people
Speaker 1: of any marginalized gender have to have names, have to
Speaker 1: speak to each other, and they have to talk about
Speaker 1: something other than a man. Our standard is a two
Speaker 1: line exchange or more of dialogue. So that's a Becktel test,
Speaker 1: and then will determine if Beauting the Beast or other
Speaker 1: adaptations passes later on. The one definitely passes the Backdel test.
Speaker 1: But it's just a perfect example of what a flawed
Speaker 1: metric it is, because you can just be talking in
Speaker 1: the worst movie you've ever heard and it can pass
Speaker 1: the Backtel So, okay, we are talking about Caitlin, what
Speaker 1: is your history with Beauty and the Beast feature film?
Speaker 1: Like I said, I just want I watched this movie
Speaker 1: on repeat as a kid. It came out and when
Speaker 1: I was. I was like five when it came out
Speaker 1: and perfect. So I've basically was watching it since we
Speaker 1: got it on like VHS that year or in ninety
Speaker 1: two or whenever, um, and have been watching it ever since. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So this is one of my favorite animated
Speaker 1: Disney movies, or at least it was at you know,
Speaker 1: the time. I have mixed feelings about it now, but
Speaker 1: I deal. There's still a lot that I that I
Speaker 1: appreciate about it, and I love, especially the score, which
Speaker 1: you so beautifully we're singing earlier. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: common Yes, Um, what's your history with it? I mean
Speaker 1: about the same. It came out before I was born,
Speaker 1: but I literally don't remember a life before this movie.
Speaker 1: I just it's It's always been the one. It was.
Speaker 1: Belle was my favor because she was not like the
Speaker 1: other girls because she could read a book. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved it. Watched it five trillion times, and
Speaker 1: as I get older and then I started bringing in animation.
Speaker 1: It's like some of the most beautiful animation ever. It's
Speaker 1: so like when I was in college, I think they released, um,
Speaker 1: like a remaster of it in theaters. Um, and I
Speaker 1: went to see it in theaters like in imax, and
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful and yeah, I just I I really,
Speaker 1: I really uh love this movie and a lot of levels.
Speaker 1: It's not I mean, it's so it's so mired in
Speaker 1: a lot of shit, but I think of the Disney
Speaker 1: um renaissance, it's not even close to like the worst
Speaker 1: disservice of a female character, which is not you know,
Speaker 1: speaking super complimentary. The bar is on the floor. But yeah,
Speaker 1: rewatching it for for this and then also kind of
Speaker 1: watching the various attempts to update it. Um, I think
Speaker 1: it holds up, you know, relatively wealth obviously. I mean
Speaker 1: it's there's been so much discourse about this movie that
Speaker 1: I don't even think I have any like new points
Speaker 1: to bring to the table. The problems with the story
Speaker 1: have been pretty well trodden, and we will trod it again.
Speaker 1: But I still love the movie. I so to prepare
Speaker 1: for this, I watched the two Disney versions. I love
Speaker 1: the original, hated the reboot, and then I also used
Speaker 1: to watch with my mom for some I don't know why.
Speaker 1: This was a Fourth of July tradition. Um On the
Speaker 1: fourth of July, my mom and I used to watch.
Speaker 1: There was a TV series on CBS that was called
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast and it starred Linda Hamilton's as
Speaker 1: the Bell character, but she's called Catherine and the show
Speaker 1: and she's a high powered assistant d a problematic and
Speaker 1: then the Beast is played by Ron Perlman in the
Speaker 1: most makeup You've ever seen in your entire life. But
Speaker 1: even Ron Pearlman on like VHS quality CBS TV show
Speaker 1: in looks better than the c G I Beast with
Speaker 1: like whatever ten is balls all over his head. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so I watched a few episodes of that to prepare
Speaker 1: as well, because I was like, well, let's find a
Speaker 1: midpoint and um, you know, the DC has a disaster.
Speaker 1: George R. R. Martin wrote on that show of his
Speaker 1: early credits, that's one of those things that I learned
Speaker 1: about and then immediately forget and then relearn like six
Speaker 1: months later, and then immediately forget and then relearn, And
Speaker 1: just like just because the second had appeared on screen,
Speaker 1: I was like, I've read that somewhere, even though I
Speaker 1: don't even care, But yeah, this show was was fun.
Speaker 1: The Beast lives in we know how It's like it's
Speaker 1: almost like us, like empty tunnels. The Beast lives in
Speaker 1: one of those tunnels. He lives in one of the
Speaker 1: US tunnels, and Linda Hamilton's goes down to one of
Speaker 1: the US tunnels and then they I don't know, I
Speaker 1: only watched the first three episodes, but it's like they
Speaker 1: agree in the pilot there like this can never be
Speaker 1: because you're a d A and I'm the Beast. Like
Speaker 1: it's so weird because she's like very eighties and he's
Speaker 1: still like the Beast and he lives in a subway tube.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, that sounds a bit like Phantom of
Speaker 1: the Opera. It's extremely Phantom of the Opera to the
Speaker 1: point where I'm like, why didn't they just do that?
Speaker 1: My my guess is Phantom of the Opera would have
Speaker 1: been a really popular Broadway show at this time, and
Speaker 1: they were like, how can we have Phantom of the
Speaker 1: Opera without paying for the rights to it? I see,
Speaker 1: that's my guests because this was like seven so pre
Speaker 1: Disney making a good version of this, so we're like,
Speaker 1: let's make a really bad version of it, and they did, Um,
Speaker 1: but I recommend it. I got CBS All Access for it,
Speaker 1: and I'm not to unsign up. Now I just have it,
Speaker 1: so now you haven't congratulations. Yeah, let me know if
Speaker 1: you want my password, if you want to want the
Speaker 1: Good Fight? Is that the one with Christine Baranski, because
Speaker 1: if I'll watch it? Hell yeah? Okay, well yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean my notes mostly focused on I have a little
Speaker 1: bit of like what the live action remake attempts to
Speaker 1: do to like update stuff, but most of my notes
Speaker 1: are on the animated version. Yeah. Yeah, no, let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about the version. Um that is fun to talk about. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and then we will come
Speaker 1: back and get into the recap. And we're back. So
Speaker 1: we get some backstory about the beast. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pass my pants off again, but just imagine
Speaker 1: right right, So we get some backstory about the beast. Um.
Speaker 1: He was horrible to this old beggar woman who shows
Speaker 1: up at his castle. She turns out to be a
Speaker 1: beautiful enchantress, so as punishment for him mistreating her, she
Speaker 1: turns him into a beast and places a spell on
Speaker 1: the entire castle, um which we will eventually learn that
Speaker 1: all of the occupants of the castle are turned into
Speaker 1: like enchanted objects. Household objects. Yeah, so she says, this enchantress,
Speaker 1: if you can get someone to fall in love with you,
Speaker 1: if you fall in love with someone and get someone
Speaker 1: to fall in love with you back by the time
Speaker 1: the last pedal fells on this enchanted rose, this spell
Speaker 1: will be broken and your beast curse will be lifted. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's the backstory, very specific curse she's casting. But
Speaker 1: I remember when I was very tiny. How in the
Speaker 1: Stained Glass introduction, the I guess which or recalling her
Speaker 1: which she's an a sorceress, an enchantress? Is what an enchantress?
Speaker 1: She's wearing this beautiful green dress that I was. I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, I wish that you actually saw her. Um,
Speaker 1: like that. I just liked that dress to say, dude,
Speaker 1: that was not dude, it's a beautiful dress. Okay. Then
Speaker 1: we cut to Bell. She lives in a small French
Speaker 1: town with her father, Maurice, who is an inventor. She
Speaker 1: loves to read. She is very beautiful, and those are
Speaker 1: the two most important things about her. Really. Um, she
Speaker 1: is so hot that the guy who owns and operates
Speaker 1: a bookstore doesn't say anything when she treats the bookstore
Speaker 1: like it's a library. He never corrects her. He's never
Speaker 1: like you you have to pay for the books. So
Speaker 1: hot people can be very intimidating like that. That's why
Speaker 1: hot people are generally really rude and have no idea.
Speaker 1: They're just like walking around because everyone's like h then
Speaker 1: no one, no one ever tells them that, yeah she did,
Speaker 1: that is true. She treats the whole damn plays like
Speaker 1: a library. And then he's like, actually, you can keep
Speaker 1: the book for free, and like you're doubling down on
Speaker 1: not teaching this woman what a store is. Not only
Speaker 1: are you letting her borrow books that you are trying
Speaker 1: to sell for human money, you are giving them away
Speaker 1: now to this hot woman for free. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how hot she is, and that's how much she loves
Speaker 1: to read. I love. This is kind of like probably
Speaker 1: the as a as a child of our generation. Um,
Speaker 1: this is probably the first like not like the other
Speaker 1: Girl's song that really gets like nailed, you know, into
Speaker 1: your head over and over. Like if you're hot and
Speaker 1: you can read a book, guess what you're gonna be
Speaker 1: both very desired and you're gonna be very reviled, which
Speaker 1: is like, I don't know what message. What the message
Speaker 1: is the message? We don't know. But if you're hot
Speaker 1: and you can read, look out, people are gonna have
Speaker 1: strong takes one way or another. So that's Bells whole
Speaker 1: thing is she also um, she wants more than this
Speaker 1: provincial life in this small French town. She sings about that.
Speaker 1: And then there's also the French Chad Gaston. Yes, he
Speaker 1: wants to marry Bell because she is hot, but she
Speaker 1: has no interest in him because he's dripping with toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1: Gaston also has a little sidekick, Lafu. So um, Bell's
Speaker 1: father Maurice is working on this wood chopping invention to
Speaker 1: take to this fair uh and he sets off but
Speaker 1: gets lost along the way and happens upon this dark
Speaker 1: and scary castle, which is like, I think we talked
Speaker 1: about this the first time, but like didn't Does no
Speaker 1: one know about the castle? How long has the castle
Speaker 1: been there? Is the provincial town not aware that there's
Speaker 1: a gigantic castle? How long has the curse been going on?
Speaker 1: Because it seems like he's pretty young when the curses
Speaker 1: put on him and they're like you haven till your
Speaker 1: twenty one bird days, You're like, okay, Max a couple
Speaker 1: of years so did the monarchy fall a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, but then everyone got like men in Black
Speaker 1: like forget Ray and they forget that there was We've
Speaker 1: talked about this before. Yeah, and this is one of
Speaker 1: the things that UM the live action remake attempts to
Speaker 1: address UM and I would recommend checking out. Lindsay Ellis
Speaker 1: does a really great video essay on this live action
Speaker 1: remake and a friend of the cast, Friend of the cast,
Speaker 1: and how a lot of the problems with it are
Speaker 1: the movie trying to like address fan criticism over the years.
Speaker 1: It's like, my thing is, like I don't even super
Speaker 1: object to like a remake trying to address fan criticism,
Speaker 1: but like almost every every way that this reboot chooses
Speaker 1: to address it is basically incoherent, Like right, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a one cent Tin's way to address that criticism
Speaker 1: that doesn't whatever. It's like a nod to the fact that, yes,
Speaker 1: the plot point doesn't super make sense, but it isn't
Speaker 1: like this whole like convoluted, Like every attempt to explain
Speaker 1: anything in their reboot, You're like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: It weakens the story for sure. On every occasion yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like you can. You can nod to it
Speaker 1: without being like, oh, there's a whole like Pixar theory
Speaker 1: on your Like, it doesn't really matter. It's not that
Speaker 1: big a deal anyway. So Maurice shows up at this
Speaker 1: castle and this is where the Beast lives, and the
Speaker 1: Beast takes Maurice as his prisoner. And then also, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, the prince who is now the Beast,
Speaker 1: his servants have been turned into these enchanted objects. So
Speaker 1: we've got like, Lumier is a candlestick, cogs Were is
Speaker 1: a clock, Mrs Potts is a tea pot, her son
Speaker 1: Chip is a little teacup. And these are all characters
Speaker 1: that Maurice meets early on. They're all cute. They're cute.
Speaker 1: So back in town, guest On is trying to force
Speaker 1: Bell into a marriage. She's not having it. And then
Speaker 1: her horse shows back up without her dad, so she
Speaker 1: goes looking for Maurice and also ends up at the
Speaker 1: castle where she comes upon her father, comes upon the
Speaker 1: beast and offers to take her father's place as the
Speaker 1: Beast's prisoner, and the Beast is like, sounds good to me,
Speaker 1: here's yourself, And so like it would be so easy
Speaker 1: to just be like, do I need a prisoner? You know?
Speaker 1: But whatever I mean, we'll talk about. This is how
Speaker 1: the story goes. So Lumier, Cogsworth, et cetera see Bell
Speaker 1: being there as an opportunity for this spell to be lifted,
Speaker 1: and they basically try to orchestrate a romance between Bell
Speaker 1: and the beast basically right away. But the beast has
Speaker 1: an awful temper and he's yelling. He's like, never fucking
Speaker 1: go to the west wing of the castle. Here's a bedroom,
Speaker 1: but don't go to the west wing. Meanwhile, back in town,
Speaker 1: Guston is singing about how awesome he is, and then
Speaker 1: Maurice comes into the tavern. He's like, hey, there's this
Speaker 1: beast and he has taken Bell as prisoner, and everyone
Speaker 1: thinks that Maurice is delusional, and then Guston sees this
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to kind of use the possibility that
Speaker 1: Maurice could get locked up as leverage to try to
Speaker 1: get closer to marrying Bell, which is truly one of
Speaker 1: the most evil ideas in all of Disney Cannon. Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's uh not discussed enough. What a
Speaker 1: truly base and evil idea it is. Yeah, He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to lock your father up, Bell unless you
Speaker 1: marry me. Sound good? That was his plan? Okay? And yeah,
Speaker 1: So back at the castle, Beast has demanded that Bell
Speaker 1: have dinner with him. She doesn't want to, and he
Speaker 1: screams at her and tells her to go ahead and starve.
Speaker 1: And then later that night, because this a lot of
Speaker 1: the recap so far has only taken has taken place
Speaker 1: over the course of a single day, which I always forget.
Speaker 1: It is a lot of things to happen in a day,
Speaker 1: and you have to keep in mind that when you
Speaker 1: take a step into the woods, it's immediately night, which
Speaker 1: people don't remember, but the second you're in the shade,
Speaker 1: it's actually night. And that's just kind of how the
Speaker 1: visual works. Yeah, it's very jarring, and I feel like,
Speaker 1: again just like one of the things that translates to
Speaker 1: live action a little weirder right in the animated In
Speaker 1: the animated version, I never I truly never noticed, but
Speaker 1: when you see it in live action, you're like, huh,
Speaker 1: it truly is just a Tuesday for for this town.
Speaker 1: So Beasts tells her to starve, but later that night
Speaker 1: she does come out of her room for some food,
Speaker 1: and this is when we get the br guest song. Beautiful,
Speaker 1: some of the most beautiful animation ever. So good, so pretty,
Speaker 1: Jerry Orbach, I'm iconic performance. It's just so good. What
Speaker 1: I should have said earlier was back dull cast, back
Speaker 1: to cast. That's way better than this. The seven minute
Speaker 1: tangent we went on at the beginning, I guess we
Speaker 1: have to let's start over. Welcome to the back Doel cast.
Speaker 1: My name is your guest is so beautiful. I've also
Speaker 1: remember now, I've also seen this the animated movie in
Speaker 1: l a before, because you know, in the before times
Speaker 1: where they used to show old Disney movies at El
Speaker 1: Capitan Theater. Oh yeah, I went to see Beauty and
Speaker 1: the Beast when I was um by myself. Wait, I
Speaker 1: think I remember this, Yeah, I think when you did
Speaker 1: after a battal cast recording ones because it's close to
Speaker 1: the studio. It was so nice. It's like when you
Speaker 1: get there, you're like, wow, this is a lot of
Speaker 1: families and I am a single adult. But it was
Speaker 1: really beautiful. And they bring Bell out at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and she throws from fetty at the audience. Wow, classic
Speaker 1: Bell and the kids love it. Um okay. So later
Speaker 1: that night, because it's still the same day, just Tuesday,
Speaker 1: it's just Tuesday, she sneaks into the West Wing where
Speaker 1: the Beast had told her not to go, and she
Speaker 1: comes upon the Rose and she almost touches it, but
Speaker 1: the Beast stops her and he flips out. This is
Speaker 1: another point in the in the U in the reboot,
Speaker 1: where there's way too much backstory that no one wanted.
Speaker 1: Where she goes to the West Wing and there she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the story of the royal family and all the
Speaker 1: and there's like a whole family tree thing, and then
Speaker 1: you're like huh. And then the Beast is like, no,
Speaker 1: both of our moms are dead and that's why we're
Speaker 1: and it's like, it turns out I didn't want it.
Speaker 1: Turns out I didn't want it. I didn't care. I
Speaker 1: didn't care, And it's way easier. There's just an oil
Speaker 1: painting of a hot guy that she doesn't know as
Speaker 1: the Beast, an allegedly hot guy. I contend, I too contend.
Speaker 1: I also think that the Beast as a man looks
Speaker 1: exactly like Patrick Wilson does in phantom like dead Ringer.
Speaker 1: I think that was part of why I was so
Speaker 1: outraged at the end of the one. I'm like, they
Speaker 1: should have just I mean, he the age gap between
Speaker 1: Emma Watson and him would have been pretty large, but
Speaker 1: I was like, it should have just been they photo.
Speaker 1: What what can you do? I mean? Anyways, So, yes,
Speaker 1: she comes across the rose and the beast is. She
Speaker 1: freaks out. He's throwing furniture around, he being a very
Speaker 1: scary guy. Yes he is, and she is very frightened, understandably,
Speaker 1: and she runs out of the castle. She's like, I
Speaker 1: don't care what I said about agreeing to stay here.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving. And it's easy for her to do, which
Speaker 1: is it? And she does remember this because she does
Speaker 1: it again later. Yeah, the doors aren't even locked. Um.
Speaker 1: One of my things is why does she accept her
Speaker 1: fate so quickly? Why doesn't she try to escape sooner?
Speaker 1: You know, we can talk about that. I mean, it's like,
Speaker 1: I guess she is kind of like I guess I
Speaker 1: can just kind of go whenever because anytime she wants
Speaker 1: to leave, which is a few different times. Um, it's
Speaker 1: not a problem. Yes, the staff that not only is
Speaker 1: the beasts quote unquote staff very much on her side.
Speaker 1: There's not enough of them to stop and their their candles.
Speaker 1: What are they gonna do? What are they gonna do? Nothing? Nothing.
Speaker 1: If I was Bell, I would just be like, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Truly? What if you fall asleep?
Speaker 1: I could just at any moment not be here anymore.
Speaker 1: But you know, what can you do? There's that big
Speaker 1: wardrobe maybe that would like fall over, try to fall
Speaker 1: over on her or something's like Bell's best friend. She's like,
Speaker 1: you're so beautiful and great and I love you, and
Speaker 1: she would never collapse on them. True, it would be
Speaker 1: funny if she tried. Um. So Bell leaves, but in
Speaker 1: the woods she gets attacked by wolves who we've already
Speaker 1: seen attack more use because apparently all the wolves in
Speaker 1: this you know land are somebody got to feed these wolves.
Speaker 1: They seem like they might have rabies. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but this is this is like super nitpicky, But it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It does make me a lot. It's winter in the woods.
Speaker 1: It's winter at night in the woods at all times,
Speaker 1: and but it's it's like fall. It's a different season nearby.
Speaker 1: It's not snowing. Another thing they like try to pass
Speaker 1: off as a joke and try to explain in the remake,
Speaker 1: which again, and it looks doesn't It looks so bad.
Speaker 1: It's also just like trust that your audience can suspend
Speaker 1: their disbelief for some stuff fun to notice. It's fun
Speaker 1: to notice, and I didn't need Emma Watson to do
Speaker 1: a Shakespearean monologue about it. But whatever. But I like
Speaker 1: winter in the woods and the coyotes are starving. They're
Speaker 1: so wolves and they try to kill Bell, but the
Speaker 1: Beast swoops in and saves the day. He gets ittten
Speaker 1: up by some of the wolves, and she has a
Speaker 1: moment where she's like, am I going to leave and
Speaker 1: escape for good or not? And she decides not. She
Speaker 1: decides to take the beast back to the castle, return
Speaker 1: with him as his prisoner, and kind of nurse him
Speaker 1: back to health. And this is when things start to change. Basically,
Speaker 1: he starts to become more caring and gentle than he
Speaker 1: was before. He shows her the castle's library and Bell
Speaker 1: loves it because Bell loves books. Then that's all kind
Speaker 1: of happens really fast. But then there's like, then there's
Speaker 1: this a romantic evening where they basically have a ball,
Speaker 1: but it's just the two of them and they both
Speaker 1: get dressed up. Be very uncomfortable in real life, but
Speaker 1: it's beautiful in the movie to have like it's did.
Speaker 1: Just imagine like being dressed up in this huge crinoline
Speaker 1: dress and then here the clink clink clink of forks
Speaker 1: um with you and someone who's sitting really couldn't be
Speaker 1: sitting further away from you. Um. We're like like yummy, um.
Speaker 1: But it is romantic the way it's presented, and it's
Speaker 1: so it's iconic. It's beautiful, and when they dance, it's
Speaker 1: the first, like one of the I think it is
Speaker 1: like the first computer generated animated shot ever featured in
Speaker 1: a feature film. It's beauty. Yes, yeah, it's nice. And
Speaker 1: this is also where we get the song pod as
Speaker 1: old at time. It's nice. It's Angela Landsberry. And then
Speaker 1: when Emma Thompson thinks that later, you're like, I love
Speaker 1: Emma Thompson, but it's not fair that she had to.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not going to do better than Angela
Speaker 1: Landsberry's Angela Landsberry. You know they shouldn't have tried, but
Speaker 1: they made a billion dollars, so they had to write.
Speaker 1: So they're having this romantic evening. They're having a nice time.
Speaker 1: But Bell is like, oh shucks, I miss my father,
Speaker 1: and the Beast is like, well, here, look at him
Speaker 1: in my magic mirror. And she sees in the mirror
Speaker 1: that Maurice, who has been out looking for Bell, is
Speaker 1: lost and alone and possibly dying. So she's like, hey, Beast,
Speaker 1: I need to leave, and he's like, okay, you can leave.
Speaker 1: You are no longer my prisoner. So she leaves the
Speaker 1: castle and finds Maurice, and then once they're back home,
Speaker 1: Gaston is like, oh shoot, like, if there's this beast
Speaker 1: out there, we have to we have to get rid
Speaker 1: of them. Gaston really as a villain, knows how to
Speaker 1: think on his feet, because he goes in with a
Speaker 1: game plan, and then he with a very evil game plan,
Speaker 1: which is too basically imprison Maury's with a cartoon character
Speaker 1: who terrified me as a child, the old man with
Speaker 1: the scraggly hair, terrifying, terrifying, terrifying person. So his plan
Speaker 1: is to basically throw Maurice away in exchange for Bell's
Speaker 1: hand in Mary. That's what he goes in thinking, and
Speaker 1: then he pivots and he's like, actually, we're going to
Speaker 1: commit a murder right now, which is like galaxy brain
Speaker 1: villain activity. I didn't this time. I this watch, I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, he really thought in his feet there,
Speaker 1: and if he was on the right side of history,
Speaker 1: imagine what we could have accomplished with Gaston because he
Speaker 1: just like changed the plan so quickly and got everyone
Speaker 1: on his side. And I feel like one of my
Speaker 1: opinions that maybe has sort of changed between um, when
Speaker 1: we first did this episode and now is I feel
Speaker 1: like I vaguely remember being like, it's mean to the
Speaker 1: townspeople to say that they would just you know, turn,
Speaker 1: and they would be so gullible to have to turn
Speaker 1: like that. Um, I don't feel that way anymore because
Speaker 1: guess what, I've been alive for the past calendar year
Speaker 1: and that happens all the fucking time. So now I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: that was hyper realistic. And I'm upset because especially because
Speaker 1: they are set up from the beginning as like being
Speaker 1: strong admirers of guests on they're like presentatives being just
Speaker 1: kind of like sheeple who will go along with whatever
Speaker 1: this like hunk Bully has to say, and so it
Speaker 1: um it turns out they were right. I was naive
Speaker 1: and this does happen. Um, It's basically just an anti
Speaker 1: mask riot going to you know, murder someone for no
Speaker 1: read These things happen, they happen. Yes, so yeah, Guston's like,
Speaker 1: come on, everyone, grab your pitchforks and let's go kill
Speaker 1: the beast, which is also a great song. And they
Speaker 1: attacked the castle, but the enchanted objects fight back, and
Speaker 1: Belle and Maurice, who are still locked up somewhere I
Speaker 1: think their basement or something. I don't know, Chip, who
Speaker 1: has stowed away when Bell left, help them escape. Bell
Speaker 1: goes back to the castle and then Guston is about
Speaker 1: to kill the beast. Uh, and there's an altercation there.
Speaker 1: Gaston stabs the beast, which would not be happening these days.
Speaker 1: We're not no longer would we have the main antagonist
Speaker 1: actively stabbing stabbing stabbing. But I do, I do, I do?
Speaker 1: Like the guest on um dies, Yeah, well he does
Speaker 1: the classic Disney simply kill that. Yeah, he falls into
Speaker 1: he falls into it in an infinity pit, but he
Speaker 1: goes flat And I kind of miss when the villain
Speaker 1: went splat. It made me miss nostalgic for when the
Speaker 1: villain used to go splat. I get why the villain
Speaker 1: no longer goes splat, and the villain you know, kind
Speaker 1: of learns, oh, I was wrong and I'm going to rehabilitate.
Speaker 1: But I kind of miss when they went splat. Does
Speaker 1: that not happen in the remake? I feel like he
Speaker 1: does to the remakes. The remakes all happen the same.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like New Original Disney story where I
Speaker 1: feel like, more like maybe it's even like a Pixar thing,
Speaker 1: but more often than not, like you get like a
Speaker 1: Toy Story three thing where it's like, actually, the villain
Speaker 1: had a traumatic backstory and their villainous with context, and
Speaker 1: now they're going to start un learning the traumatic things
Speaker 1: that made them villains and they're gonna be nice, which
Speaker 1: is beautiful, but I kind of miss when they went splat. Sure, yeah, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So Guston first shoots Beasts with the bow and arrow
Speaker 1: and then stabs him and like and then Beast is
Speaker 1: like kind of ready to give up because he thinks
Speaker 1: that Bell doesn't love him, but then Bell shows back
Speaker 1: up at the castle. He's like, wait a minute, Bell
Speaker 1: is back, Maybe she does love me so he kind
Speaker 1: of gets a second wind, and there's this whole altercation.
Speaker 1: Guest On falls off into the ravine. Um beausy. He
Speaker 1: goes splat. Beast is dying from the stab wound. But
Speaker 1: Bell is like, Beast, I love you, and that heels
Speaker 1: his artery. Yes, that undoes the internal bleeding that he
Speaker 1: is dying from, which is which is great for him,
Speaker 1: and the spell has been broken. The Beast turns back
Speaker 1: into a human prince. All the enchanted objects in the
Speaker 1: castle turned back into people, and they all live happily
Speaker 1: ever after. Sure we're not so why not that's the story.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and come back to discuss.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Where should we start? I guess? I mean,
Speaker 1: do I just start baby talking about um Bell? Does
Speaker 1: that make sense? That makes so much sense to get
Speaker 1: a place as I need to start. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I feel like this is like, uh, a discord as
Speaker 1: old as time, Jamie, thank you so much, Bell. I
Speaker 1: feel I mean this again, this is not a super compliment.
Speaker 1: The bar is low. I still feel like Bell is
Speaker 1: among at least foundationally, one of the stronger of the
Speaker 1: nineties disnease princesses. And how she's written we will get
Speaker 1: to I guess I'll just say what I like about
Speaker 1: her character at the top. I like that she is UM.
Speaker 1: I guess we don't necessarily know that she's intelligent. We
Speaker 1: really just know she can read. We don't know what
Speaker 1: her comprehension level is really UM, I think we're meant to.
Speaker 1: I think like her loving to read is code for
Speaker 1: it was like she's smart can be as interpreted as yes,
Speaker 1: she's very smart. I like that she is confident in that,
Speaker 1: and even when people give her shit about it, she
Speaker 1: is still out there reading. I appreciate that. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that her Unlike some you know, Disney family dynamics, her
Speaker 1: dad UM is very supportive of the fact that she
Speaker 1: loves to read. He is not actively trying to marry
Speaker 1: her off to some random person. When Bell says that
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to marry guests on, he respects that.
Speaker 1: So I generally like the dynamic that they have. It
Speaker 1: makes sense that this eccentric inventor would have a brainy daughter,
Speaker 1: and he does, and he appreciates that, and they appreciate
Speaker 1: each other. And I like that UM and I feel
Speaker 1: like Bell is uh put In, and I guess this
Speaker 1: is like an entryway to the rest of the conversation.
Speaker 1: But she's put in a series of pretty impossible situations
Speaker 1: and is making active decisions pretty frequently. Right, The situations
Speaker 1: she's being put in and the choices that she makes
Speaker 1: are certainly up for debate. But she is not like
Speaker 1: a sleeping beauty path passive character. She is making decisions
Speaker 1: actively throughout just the bummer that they were not better
Speaker 1: choices are options at her disposal and then related to that,
Speaker 1: I think is and this is part of a larger
Speaker 1: conversation to be had also, But the Beast spends a
Speaker 1: great deal of the movie mistreating her, and she does
Speaker 1: push back on it a lot of the time, which
Speaker 1: does which is good, which is good. So again, just
Speaker 1: kind of a more maybe passive character or a less
Speaker 1: thoughtfully written character would not have been characterized that way
Speaker 1: to challenge the Beast in a lot of his behavior.
Speaker 1: So I appreciated that that was like a nice thing
Speaker 1: as a young person to see, especially to see like
Speaker 1: a woman in a movie targeted word children to like
Speaker 1: challenge like a man being shitty. Yes, I especially, I
Speaker 1: mean we have talked to death, how imperfect nineties Third
Speaker 1: wave feminism is, and I feel like Belle is very
Speaker 1: solidly a part of that discussion, where it's like she
Speaker 1: is doing a lot, and she's speaking up more and
Speaker 1: she's pushing back, and she like values her intelligence and
Speaker 1: her outcome is more or less the same as it
Speaker 1: would be if she were not doing those things. So
Speaker 1: that's not ideal, um, but I you know, it is definitely.
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the things we lacked from
Speaker 1: our first pass at this discussion was the context of
Speaker 1: when this was coming out. And so when this was
Speaker 1: coming out, the last Disney princess you had to compare
Speaker 1: her against was Ariel, and so it's a step forward
Speaker 1: in that regard. I also don't know how much we
Speaker 1: talked about the screenwriter of this movie at the time. Um.
Speaker 1: Linda Wolverton, who has kind of um even since we
Speaker 1: last recorded, remained in this. I guess it's not I
Speaker 1: don't know what to call it. She's written Disney heroines
Speaker 1: for almost thirty years now, where she wrote Beauty and
Speaker 1: the Beast. She did work on a Labin, She was
Speaker 1: has a co writing credit on The Lion King. She
Speaker 1: did work on Mulan. She wrote the screenplays for the
Speaker 1: Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland, she wrote Maleficent, she wrote
Speaker 1: Alice through the Looking Glass, and she wrote the second Maleficent.
Speaker 1: So she's been in it for a bit writing. I
Speaker 1: think these pretty commercially successful commercial feminism characters. Yes, so
Speaker 1: you did. The Bell was very much a woman of
Speaker 1: her time and by her time, I mean. One of
Speaker 1: the big things that and I think this might be
Speaker 1: sort of me repeating myself from the first episode, and
Speaker 1: there will be a little bit of that, but well,
Speaker 1: no one can go back and check, so well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then certainly I wouldn't, but I took issue with it,
Speaker 1: then I take issue with it now still that One
Speaker 1: of the big things that just strikes me about her
Speaker 1: character in general is she is characterized in the very
Speaker 1: beginning as her uh and this is so this is
Speaker 1: a pretty standard thing for a lot of protagonists of
Speaker 1: any story, where they are kind of equipped with a longing,
Speaker 1: a desire, something that they want, some sort of like
Speaker 1: empty void want Disney song, right, some some void in
Speaker 1: their life that in theory will be fulfilled by the
Speaker 1: end of the story, And a lot of times the
Speaker 1: story is about how they go about filling that void
Speaker 1: or whatever journey that they've gone on manages to fill
Speaker 1: that void. So Bill's song her want is, and she
Speaker 1: says it very explicitly in song form, I want much
Speaker 1: more than this provincial life. I want adventure in the
Speaker 1: great wide somewhere. So she's talking about I mean, well,
Speaker 1: maybe she should have been more specific when she said somewhere, um,
Speaker 1: but yes, yeah, she doesn't get what she wants right.
Speaker 1: So she's talking about wanting to venture out into the
Speaker 1: world and see what it has to offer, and rather
Speaker 1: than doing that, she ends up sacrificing her freedom, so
Speaker 1: her ability to do that for a man, her father,
Speaker 1: and then falls in love with a different man, the
Speaker 1: Beast by the end of the movie. So she doesn't
Speaker 1: get adventure in the great wide somewhere unless you count
Speaker 1: the confines of this castle the great wide somewhere, which
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be like. It's this is like one of
Speaker 1: the many ways that it becomes like. It's kind of
Speaker 1: an impossible not impossible. There's a way to update a
Speaker 1: very old story to make it to have it have
Speaker 1: the core message of the original and also have it
Speaker 1: feel very modern. I always go to like Cluelist for
Speaker 1: a really good example of like this is a Jane
Speaker 1: Austen story, but it doesn't feel like it at all,
Speaker 1: and and it feels very of the time it was released.
Speaker 1: I feel like Beauty and the Beast. Maybe it doesn't
Speaker 1: really retain those same qualities because the this is again
Speaker 1: just like for So for Forever, Disney and a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, heavily funded popular media does not take
Speaker 1: chances on original stories very often, so we get these
Speaker 1: old this is an old French story, and it follows
Speaker 1: all the beats of that story and then tries to
Speaker 1: insert all this modern sensibility into it. But the modern
Speaker 1: sensibility is kind of chafe with the story they're adapting.
Speaker 1: So it ends up like the modern things they're inserting
Speaker 1: into this movie don't really end up paying off in
Speaker 1: any meaningful way, because it still ends like it did
Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds or the eighteen hundreds, and so
Speaker 1: it's like it's not It ends up almost like making
Speaker 1: you feel a little more bummed out because because Bell
Speaker 1: doesn't get what she wants, and it's a very like
Speaker 1: progressive thing to say, like, oh, and she wants so
Speaker 1: much more, but that's unfortunately not how this story goes,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, then why did you have what?
Speaker 1: Then maybe why did you ever say it? Then you
Speaker 1: know it? Or if if you want to write a
Speaker 1: movie about a young woman who kind of feels trapped
Speaker 1: in this kind of small town life and wants to
Speaker 1: venture out and like go off on an adventure, then
Speaker 1: don't adopt Beauty and the Beast story. Like the modern
Speaker 1: stuff shapes with the source material and then it never
Speaker 1: really I feel like it kind of fails to meet
Speaker 1: in the middle in a way that doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter that much if you're like five years old,
Speaker 1: I'm watching the But as an adult you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, if we're even going from like the Disney
Speaker 1: formula of like the main character singing about what they
Speaker 1: want at the beginning of the movie, you know, at
Speaker 1: least Aerial technically gets what she wanted, which was to
Speaker 1: live above water, and she does get that by the
Speaker 1: end of the movie, Um, she accomplishes that goal. Bells
Speaker 1: Dulls song should have been about something different. She should
Speaker 1: have like sung about like I want to have a
Speaker 1: gigantic library because she gets that. Like if we if
Speaker 1: we need the story to end with her living in
Speaker 1: a castle, nearby. Then it's a bummer to have her
Speaker 1: dream be like really not that at all or even
Speaker 1: I mean, if she just wants like romantic love in
Speaker 1: her life and that's like the thing that she longs
Speaker 1: for and there's no suitable suitors in town, and even
Speaker 1: like just like someone who it would even work if
Speaker 1: it's like she wants to like a live in a
Speaker 1: place where she feels understood, or like where she feels
Speaker 1: like her interests are, like, it doesn't even need to
Speaker 1: be necessarily a romantical she can just be like, I
Speaker 1: want to feel understood by someone other than my weird dad.
Speaker 1: Like that's a relatable goal to be, Like, I feel
Speaker 1: misunderstood where I live. I want to live in a
Speaker 1: community where people respect where I'm coming from and they
Speaker 1: understand me regardless of the coordinates of where it is.
Speaker 1: But that's not that's just not her goal. She's just like,
Speaker 1: I want to live anywhere else, and then she doesn't,
Speaker 1: And it's a bummer, Um, but I don't. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's part of the I feel like part of the
Speaker 1: fun of talking about this movie is nitpicking it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it is like that that is a really fundamental, like
Speaker 1: she doesn't get what she wanted, and that makes me
Speaker 1: I like to think they moved, you know, because all
Speaker 1: that this whole movie takes place over the course of
Speaker 1: a couple of days. Who knows what happens next week.
Speaker 1: I like to think of the Straight to V just
Speaker 1: stuff definitely not canon. They move, they move, even just
Speaker 1: the fact that she says I want adventure, and again
Speaker 1: like she doesn't unless you count being a prisoner. I guess,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess getting held prisoner is it's a venture.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a it's a it's a really shitty
Speaker 1: the adventure. The adventure. Um, I think a movie that
Speaker 1: obviously comes out much later but handles this way better
Speaker 1: is mo Wanna, because she has a very standard like
Speaker 1: I have this longing, this thing that I desire, and
Speaker 1: it's to be out on the sea. She also wants
Speaker 1: adventure in the great wide somewhere, which is the sea.
Speaker 1: And then that's what the entire movie is about, adventure.
Speaker 1: And then she finds a home within herself, and she
Speaker 1: does in his whole journey, and it's like and Bell,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just especially where like Disney movies are
Speaker 1: at it this time, I feel like and I want.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would be so curious to hear what
Speaker 1: the writing process of this movie was like in terms
Speaker 1: of like what kind of notes would you be getting
Speaker 1: back in the late eighties early nineties when when Linda
Speaker 1: Wolverton was writing this thing. I'm sure it was messy
Speaker 1: as hell. Like I would be so curious of like
Speaker 1: what she tried to write in that didn't really get
Speaker 1: there and like where is the line? I guess because
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah, I mean, it's it's like movie the
Speaker 1: even even Disney movies have come you know, reasonably far
Speaker 1: um outside and again it's a kind of outside of
Speaker 1: their reboot sphere. Their original stories have come pretty far.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's it's just weird. There's just a
Speaker 1: little bit of dissonance watching it back as an adult
Speaker 1: because it's just like the movie is ultimately not that
Speaker 1: invested in what Bell's goals are, not at all, and
Speaker 1: that that, yeah, brings me to a whole bel I have.
Speaker 1: But just to kind of go back to what you're
Speaker 1: just saying, there are let me count ten or leven
Speaker 1: ten somewhere around their story by credits for this movie.
Speaker 1: So there's a screenwriter who wrote the screenplay, but then
Speaker 1: there are additional like ten story by credits, and that
Speaker 1: doesn't always mean that like ten people worked equally on
Speaker 1: the story together. You know, some people get story by
Speaker 1: credits because they wrote like two lines of dialogue kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, just like weird things like that.
Speaker 1: The industry is weird sometimes. But um, it seems like
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people and a lot of
Speaker 1: just kind of like two many I mean, when too many,
Speaker 1: too many cooks in the kitchen. Yeah, but it's like
Speaker 1: this is how these Disney movies go where, Like it's
Speaker 1: so it's always so interesting to hear when someone is
Speaker 1: a little bit outside of that Disney machine and they
Speaker 1: speak more frankly about like these are the kind of
Speaker 1: notes I was getting. This is like what the conversations
Speaker 1: actually were, because like a story by credit could mean
Speaker 1: kind of anything, especially in animation, Like it's so vague
Speaker 1: what would constitute a story by credit. And there are
Speaker 1: there's there's one woman on this team. There's one woman
Speaker 1: on the story by team. And then the screenplay credit
Speaker 1: is also a woman, but that's not that's not proportionate,
Speaker 1: and it shows there's a man named Kelly. Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's weird. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: this is unfortunately we are still in the era of
Speaker 1: Disney movies with empty feminism. We're not We're not out
Speaker 1: of it. There's a few exceptions, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: we're still not out of the empty feminist capitalism movement.
Speaker 1: But but this, but a lot of the foundation is
Speaker 1: kind of being laid during the Disney renaissance of like
Speaker 1: we're going to give a nod to all the ladies
Speaker 1: out there, but guess what, honey, You're still going to
Speaker 1: marry the emotionally abusive guy at the end. And that's
Speaker 1: something I know that It's like again, it's like part
Speaker 1: of this is criticizing the source material. And ultimately it's like,
Speaker 1: if you don't want these story problems, don't adapt these
Speaker 1: old ask stories like centuries old. The best way to
Speaker 1: combat uh and like prejudice shit is not to adapt
Speaker 1: the oldest story you can possibly find. It's a great
Speaker 1: way to do it. But the same way where like
Speaker 1: with the with the relationship with Bell and the Beast,
Speaker 1: where there's a lot to talk about here and a
Speaker 1: lot of it is like kind of boring discussion. But
Speaker 1: I do feel like, ultimately, you know, the burden of
Speaker 1: forgiveness lays on Bell in a way that is not fair,
Speaker 1: like in a way that is expecting a lot. It
Speaker 1: is very And I don't think that he really you know,
Speaker 1: I think that the beast certainly demonstrates growth throughout the story.
Speaker 1: Sure would I would I, you know, were I in
Speaker 1: her shoes? Would I feel he has earned forgiveness? Maybe
Speaker 1: not for me, No, I think maybe he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's also he's been on this journey for two days,
Speaker 1: like let's let's see some more results. Um. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and the but the burden of forgiveness very much laze
Speaker 1: on Bell or the story can't resolve exactly. And that
Speaker 1: brings me to a little segment I would like to
Speaker 1: call the expectations of women's expectations. But but but hit
Speaker 1: it is that a song from the movie or is
Speaker 1: that just your own song? Um? That was the Price
Speaker 1: is Right theme song? Okay, good, Okay. So I think
Speaker 1: that this is a thing that's true in real life,
Speaker 1: and I think it's reflected in media where when it
Speaker 1: comes to hetero romance, women tend to be expected to
Speaker 1: have low standards for men. Uh, in a bunch of
Speaker 1: different areas, areas like personality, emotional intelligence, emotional maturity, hygiene,
Speaker 1: et cetera amount of ship you will put up with
Speaker 1: before bailing, yes, And a lot of that comes from
Speaker 1: the boys will be boys mentality, where you know, all
Speaker 1: men are just gonna sunk up there. This is just
Speaker 1: how they are. They don't know how to be people,
Speaker 1: and we just have to forgive them, which plays very
Speaker 1: much into male redemption arcs. And this, to me, is
Speaker 1: a story that is largely about the beast getting to
Speaker 1: redeem himself. And you know there's other kind of thematic
Speaker 1: things happening, but that's a big part of the story.
Speaker 1: In the reboot, they managed to make it a story
Speaker 1: about fathers and sons, which I hated. Not any animated
Speaker 1: one is simply a man who needs redeeming, like needs redeeming,
Speaker 1: and then like being allowed and like everyone like giving
Speaker 1: him the space to be able to redeem himself. And
Speaker 1: I've stated in other episodes how I'm generally not thrilled
Speaker 1: with a lot of redemption like male redemption stories. And
Speaker 1: it's not also how low the bar is that you
Speaker 1: need to clear in order to warrant a redemption redemption,
Speaker 1: which is like, yeah, like stop holding a woman prisoner
Speaker 1: is a very low bar you have to clear for
Speaker 1: only a couple of hours before immediately being like, you
Speaker 1: know what I have, I'm back right, okay, bleak, And
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, it's not that I think
Speaker 1: that people and men in particular don't deserve second chances
Speaker 1: and shots at redemption. I'm not saying that. I think
Speaker 1: it's a very like case by case basis, you know,
Speaker 1: what did you do and and do you observe a
Speaker 1: shot at redemption is very generous a scenario by scenario,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. But so many cinematic stories are
Speaker 1: about male redemption because like, people are just conditioned to
Speaker 1: be way more tolerant of men's mistakes and just expect
Speaker 1: that men will make a bunch of mistakes and be
Speaker 1: perfectly willing to give them second chances. But on the
Speaker 1: flip side of that, which is this double standard of
Speaker 1: women just kind of being expected to be perfect from
Speaker 1: the start, we don't really tolerate a woman's redemption because
Speaker 1: we don't tolerate anything besides a woman being There shouldn't
Speaker 1: be a need for a woman's redemption, because a woman
Speaker 1: should have just like done everything right from the beginning,
Speaker 1: which and also the and also I feel like in
Speaker 1: these sorts of stories, specifically, women are not given enough
Speaker 1: narrative space to even make a mistake, Like they're mostly
Speaker 1: just cleaning up after the men that they are beholden
Speaker 1: to stuff for like, Bell gets into this whole situation
Speaker 1: because Maurice didn't turn his GPS on right like he
Speaker 1: he gets lost. She's cleaning up his she's rescuing him,
Speaker 1: which is good. She's rescuing him. That is an active decision.
Speaker 1: That's like, I don't dislike the Maurice Bell relationship. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like we've all cleaned up after a parent. But
Speaker 1: but it's like, you know, she doesn't really have the
Speaker 1: space to make a mistake because Gaston's coming at her
Speaker 1: from one end. Maurice is sucking up over here now
Speaker 1: the beast is holding her prisoner. When is she She's, yeah,
Speaker 1: she didn't have any space to to do and she
Speaker 1: hasn't no a woman, you know. So it's just nor
Speaker 1: is she written to be a character who would make
Speaker 1: a mistake, because she's basically written to be perfect, even
Speaker 1: though the the town thinks she's weird. But we are
Speaker 1: not meant to root for the townspeople. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like they hate her because she is the nineties ideal
Speaker 1: of what a woman is, which is right, completely hot, perfect,
Speaker 1: Western beauty standards ten and a genius. She's a hot
Speaker 1: genius and in eighteen something France, people are like, what's
Speaker 1: going on, But it's like that's, you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: cultural ideal is to be a hot genius. The townspeople
Speaker 1: are presented as you know, anyone. They're not they're not
Speaker 1: going to appreciate creativity or innovation or anything that's like
Speaker 1: new or different. You know. They are the type of
Speaker 1: people who know, and they're they're also they also fall
Speaker 1: victim to have just like animation stuff of like they're
Speaker 1: drawn to look poor and Bell is you know, of
Speaker 1: their class, but she's drawn to look not like them.
Speaker 1: Her her character design is something we've talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: to death, but like she's designed to be a woman, yeah,
Speaker 1: and not just human woman, but like Western beauty standards
Speaker 1: beautiful human woman. Yeah, Like she's drawn to look like
Speaker 1: an algorithm, you know, image of like the perfect is
Speaker 1: what she's drawn like, and everyone else is a literal
Speaker 1: cartoon because it's a cartoon. Yes. So, so Bell is,
Speaker 1: like we said, she's a genius. She's very smart, she's
Speaker 1: well read, she's beautiful. Her name is literally means beautiful.
Speaker 1: She's ambitious, even though she never gets to realize any
Speaker 1: of her ambitions. She's this like perfect character without any flaws,
Speaker 1: although I would argue that she is too forgiving of
Speaker 1: people who mistreat her um, but that's not that was
Speaker 1: considered a flaw exactly. Well that that's also not what
Speaker 1: the movie wants you to think. This is just what
Speaker 1: I think about it. They're like, oh, no, forgiving the
Speaker 1: Like I think that the movie is like, oh no,
Speaker 1: forgiving the Beast is what a beautiful genius would do. Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's where we're supposed to get. It's hard
Speaker 1: to get there these days, but like, I think that
Speaker 1: that's where you were supposed to get. Because so, I
Speaker 1: think this story would be way more interesting if Bell
Speaker 1: had a flaw and also had character growth and a
Speaker 1: character arc, much like the Beast does. But she is
Speaker 1: presented as someone who from the very start has the
Speaker 1: capacity to look beyond someone's external appearance and see beauty
Speaker 1: from within. Because this story wants to be about like,
Speaker 1: can someone possibly fall in love with a beast someone
Speaker 1: who's so hideous on the outside. But Belle is presented
Speaker 1: as someone who would always have the capacity to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. So there's no arc there, there's
Speaker 1: no She's just like flat from the start. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like she doesn't really change, Like she mostly is just
Speaker 1: kind of managing a lot of situations that want she's
Speaker 1: doing it all, but she basically remains the same person
Speaker 1: fundamentally because it's like she is because even when she's
Speaker 1: afraid of him, it makes sense that she would be
Speaker 1: afraid of him. He is threatening her with imprisoned with
Speaker 1: with Like it's never it's never that she Like I
Speaker 1: think that that's like another thing where I kind of get, like,
Speaker 1: what happened? What is what is happening here? With the
Speaker 1: like nineties sensibility being inserted into this centuries old story
Speaker 1: where a Belle really never never judges the beast for
Speaker 1: being other, you know, like she never really judges him
Speaker 1: for looking different than her. She really only gets upset
Speaker 1: with him when he's mean violence, Like, so I agree
Speaker 1: with that. So it's like it's she doesn't really have
Speaker 1: an art from being like I judged him based on
Speaker 1: his appearance too. Now I have learned that there's no
Speaker 1: way to live your life. But that's never a problem
Speaker 1: for her. She never judges him based on his appearance.
Speaker 1: She judges him strictly based on how he behaves towards
Speaker 1: her right and the whole curse that the Enchantress and
Speaker 1: cannot say this word Enchantress puts on the beast. The
Speaker 1: Prince at the beginning is like, oh, you're good luck
Speaker 1: finding someone who's going to love you because you're a
Speaker 1: beast now and it's all about, you know, finding beauty
Speaker 1: with his problem as he was an asshole, right, but yeah,
Speaker 1: what beauty within? This guy sucks. He's so mean an
Speaker 1: awful and he treats Bell if something like just to
Speaker 1: run through everything he does. On the first night alone,
Speaker 1: he imprisons her and takes away all of her freedom
Speaker 1: for the flimsiest reason imaginable. He demands that Bell joined
Speaker 1: him for dinner. He screams at her while doing this,
Speaker 1: He threatens her saying come out or I'll break down
Speaker 1: the door. He then tells her to starve. Then he
Speaker 1: invades her privacy by spying on her through the magic mirror.
Speaker 1: Later that night, after she's gone into the west wing,
Speaker 1: he screams at her again. He violently throws furniture around.
Speaker 1: Just his actions are very alarming and it's scary and
Speaker 1: to the point where she runs away for her dear
Speaker 1: life kind of thing. And and the whole thing is like, oh,
Speaker 1: he just needs to learn to control his temper, right,
Speaker 1: But it's I mean, it's like, yeah, but which is
Speaker 1: which is true? He does need to learn how to
Speaker 1: control this temperature. But that doesn't mean that whatever. The
Speaker 1: burden of forgiveness thing always bugs me in any story
Speaker 1: because it's like, if someone behaves horribly towards you, you
Speaker 1: are not obligated to forgive them like they hopefully they
Speaker 1: will work in themselves and not perpetuate that behavior to
Speaker 1: other people. But that doesn't mean that you have to
Speaker 1: personally be like I forgive you. That's not always guaranteed
Speaker 1: in the way that like, not everyone's going to be
Speaker 1: able to forgive that behavior. And that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense went others furtituate you. You know that is
Speaker 1: going to take more than two days to forgive. And
Speaker 1: that's the other thing too, is I always forget how
Speaker 1: little time is spent on screen in this movie, developing
Speaker 1: their romance because basically be sall for though so sometimes
Speaker 1: been like in the Twee thousands, Okay, this is like
Speaker 1: a super nippic In the they have a little snowball
Speaker 1: fight and it's kind of cute and you're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: they're starting to get along. That's nice. One he like
Speaker 1: throws a huge snowball at her head and like knocks
Speaker 1: her with intent to kill. Um, that doesn't happen. I
Speaker 1: had to go back to, Oh, he doesn't throw anything
Speaker 1: at her. No, it's in terms of snow it's her
Speaker 1: throwing a bunch of snowballs at him, and then he
Speaker 1: gets a snowball together, but then he doesn't throw it
Speaker 1: at her. He's like te heat because because he would
Speaker 1: hurt her, because he would do my killer. Because she
Speaker 1: throws a snowball at him and he has like the
Speaker 1: big one lifted over his head, but then it like
Speaker 1: falls onto his head also, so he just gets pelted
Speaker 1: with her snowballs his own snowballs. Yeah, it's very very
Speaker 1: fun and flirty. Um, it's a very already snowball fight.
Speaker 1: You know, like, has he really earned the snowball fight?
Speaker 1: I guess that that's certainly up for debate, but like
Speaker 1: it's not a violent, violent altercation. And Emma Wattson gets
Speaker 1: like like Kama Kazi with a snowball. It's yeah, she
Speaker 1: falls down and then he laughs about it. It's horrifying.
Speaker 1: Also in the I do think that the live action
Speaker 1: remake does attempt to draw out they're developing romance more,
Speaker 1: but they don't do it well because of that scary
Speaker 1: snowball fight and the beast just like neg spell a bunch.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, you like Romeo and Juliet typical that
Speaker 1: you'd love that romantic drivels just all like it's not
Speaker 1: very sweet. Um. And then it doesn't help that the
Speaker 1: that the two actors have like no chemistry whatsoever, like
Speaker 1: the most chemistry I feel. And I am not a
Speaker 1: Josh Gad fan, as listeners know, I find him to
Speaker 1: be a very frustrating person. But I felt like Luke
Speaker 1: Evans and Josh Gad had the best chemistry between two
Speaker 1: actors in the entire movie because they were like, we
Speaker 1: can actually sing, so let's just hang out and have
Speaker 1: a good time. But no one else, I mean, my god,
Speaker 1: the yeah, like Emma Watson and that pile of tennis
Speaker 1: balls did not have They kept nagging her, did not
Speaker 1: have any chemistry. It just didn't. I you know, it's
Speaker 1: like I appreciate, but again it's like I think, watching
Speaker 1: these two right in a row, it's clear which one
Speaker 1: is superior. But even so, like seeing one sensibilities plugged
Speaker 1: into an old as story with the Disney formula didn't
Speaker 1: really logistically work if you think about it, and then
Speaker 1: seeing the same thing be attempted in doesn't work because
Speaker 1: now the values are even further apart than they were,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty years ago, and so it makes even
Speaker 1: less sense that they would end up together at the end.
Speaker 1: If we're going to make this with values, they would
Speaker 1: not end up together right the end. It's make a
Speaker 1: different movie. But they can't. They can't do that. They
Speaker 1: need a billion dollars literally so badly, so they have
Speaker 1: to do it. I also just wonder, so oh so,
Speaker 1: what I was saying is that so little screen time
Speaker 1: is spent in the ninety one version developing the romance,
Speaker 1: which just like he shows her a library and suddenly
Speaker 1: she's like he's not so bad, Like he was just
Speaker 1: screaming at you and nearly killing you. To be fair,
Speaker 1: Bell wants free books really bad. She's been conning her
Speaker 1: way into free books for a long time, and so
Speaker 1: this is actually a big opportunity for her. She could
Speaker 1: maybe like start flipping these books. They look antique, they
Speaker 1: look so if she's in it for the free books,
Speaker 1: oh my god boy, and she right, man, that's such
Speaker 1: a more interesting story to me. If she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll pretend to be in love with this guy and
Speaker 1: like make a life with him just so I can
Speaker 1: have access to these millions of books in his library.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's only one guy to get them
Speaker 1: from in her entire zip code. And she seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a small shop. He never has any
Speaker 1: new books in. She's like, do you have anything new?
Speaker 1: And he's like no, and she's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Like so I see that, you know, based on the
Speaker 1: scarcity of of literary works in this area, maybe that's
Speaker 1: a reason to hang out. But but it's also like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just it's such a it's such
Speaker 1: a mess. This whole relationship is such as I really,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like the most and this is
Speaker 1: like addressed in a different Lindsay Hollis video. But the
Speaker 1: most popular criticism of the Bell Beast relationship is that
Speaker 1: she has Stockholm syndrome, which is just like just a
Speaker 1: fun little history lesson for everybody. That Stockholm syndrome is
Speaker 1: like whatever, it's I feel like the popular interpretation of
Speaker 1: it is it's like when you begin to feel empathy
Speaker 1: for someone who is your captor who is not treating
Speaker 1: you all. But it's like a false it's just kind
Speaker 1: of a false premise for any sort of like psychological
Speaker 1: reaction to a situation, because the whole thing of Stockholm
Speaker 1: syndrome was that there was a group of people who
Speaker 1: were taken hostage in a bank, and the reason that
Speaker 1: they began to empathize with their captors is because they
Speaker 1: were terrified of the police, who were probably going to
Speaker 1: kill them if they walked outside. So it kind of
Speaker 1: has like, really, there's a lot that's been written about it,
Speaker 1: but it has very little to do with like, oh,
Speaker 1: now I love my captor. My captor is amazing. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: I feel like my captor is less likely to kill
Speaker 1: me and has a less vested interest in killing me
Speaker 1: then a cop. So, um, it's not as far as
Speaker 1: I know, there's no cops in Bell's neighborhood, which is amazing,
Speaker 1: I mean, utopia, it's good. So so the whole Stockholm
Speaker 1: syndrome thing is just like a nonstarter in terms of
Speaker 1: any sort of meaningful discussion. I do I do think
Speaker 1: that it's like there's a pressure put on that character
Speaker 1: to really do some empathy gymnastics and forgiveness gymnastics in
Speaker 1: a way that doesn't really match up with the character
Speaker 1: that we've been introduced to. I mean, even though it's
Speaker 1: like she she clearly has a big capacity for empathy
Speaker 1: and understanding because she is a hot genius who is
Speaker 1: perfect um, but we're also told that the Beast doesn't
Speaker 1: really come into like what her goals are, and and
Speaker 1: we learned so early in the movie that it's really
Speaker 1: easy for her to get away from him if she
Speaker 1: wants to, um, right, And why wouldn't she want to
Speaker 1: because he's horribly mistreating her. Yeah, it's again just like
Speaker 1: the values of the stories are chafing with each other
Speaker 1: in a way that's kind of like, you know, if
Speaker 1: if you look, if you if you squint at it
Speaker 1: a little bit, you're like, oh, I guess that doesn't
Speaker 1: really make sense. It's yeah, what I feel like is
Speaker 1: I don't know, this is okay, here's my heart tick
Speaker 1: of the episode. Please. The ending of this movie really
Speaker 1: made me appreciate the ending of Shrek, because Shrek Shrek
Speaker 1: was going to come up today, you know, for Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Speaker 1: You text. I woke up to a text about Shrek
Speaker 1: from you. Oh can I read it? Yes? Please? I said, sorry,
Speaker 1: let me find it here. Also, I got my email
Speaker 1: today saying my Shrek three laundres on the way. Oh
Speaker 1: my good news at a sign I can't fun. We
Speaker 1: just text too much, it's too far back, but we
Speaker 1: simply have too healthier friendship. Wait where wait? Yes, you said, um,
Speaker 1: look all I'm saying as we should cover Shrek to
Speaker 1: this year, and are you wrong? Certainly not, certainly not.
Speaker 1: I'm actually very right. But the ending of Shrek right,
Speaker 1: So the So these are two katzenberg um masterpieces we're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, our I p quilby all of that.
Speaker 1: I'm also seeing, as it relates to Jeffrey Katzenberg and
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast, that the reason there are so
Speaker 1: many story by credits on this movie is because of
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Katzenberg. He had the entire first draft of this movie,
Speaker 1: which was non musical, scrapped and we've written as a musical.
Speaker 1: So that is part of the reason why there's so
Speaker 1: many storybis is because there's just a ton of different
Speaker 1: versions of it. Um. But the ending where I feel
Speaker 1: like the ending of Shrek is a bit more impactful,
Speaker 1: and here's why, is because, um, Shrek at the end.
Speaker 1: First of all, we have like a lot of like
Speaker 1: beauty normative issues in this movie right where there's a
Speaker 1: very like rigid binary of like good equals Western beauty
Speaker 1: standards of whatever the movies year released into standards, um
Speaker 1: bad equals literally anything else, and this movie definitely subscribes
Speaker 1: to that kind of thing, I guess with the exception
Speaker 1: of guest On, but Shrek, you know, at the end,
Speaker 1: Fiona goes out of the Western beauty standards character and
Speaker 1: becomes a person or an ogre rather who she's more
Speaker 1: comfortable as and feels more fully herself. And that's the
Speaker 1: happy ending, as they are both like just feeling their
Speaker 1: truest selves and they don't care what anyone thinks. Whereas
Speaker 1: the way this movie ends and the way that men
Speaker 1: movies end is like the the Beast is designed to
Speaker 1: be this other character and it's like he's not even
Speaker 1: like they somehow managed to make the Beast kind of
Speaker 1: hot I stand by to this day. But you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's this other character and then he's a monster, right,
Speaker 1: and then at the end he's he looks like Patrick
Speaker 1: Wilson and Phantom of the Opera. He is, you know,
Speaker 1: a rich white guy with longish hair, and this is
Speaker 1: his quote unquote reward for two days of working on himself.
Speaker 1: And that's just like kind of a very that's a
Speaker 1: very like you know, simple hollow ending and just again
Speaker 1: kind of enforces that rigid beauty binary that exists in
Speaker 1: you know, everything to this day, but in this movie
Speaker 1: it's pretty egregious because it's a fairy tale where things
Speaker 1: tend to be very rigid, and it's also kind of
Speaker 1: validating that rigidity by inserted all this nineties mentality into
Speaker 1: it and kind of like validates it in a way
Speaker 1: that I feel like doesn't work super well. I agree. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could talk about Monster other ring characters all day long,
Speaker 1: and we've we've talked about it in in other episodes
Speaker 1: as well, But yeah, that I mean, that's I feel
Speaker 1: like one of the more egregious elements of movies like this. Again,
Speaker 1: I guess I would say with the exception of Gaston,
Speaker 1: who I guess is there to be like even if
Speaker 1: someone is you know, I think I think we're supposed
Speaker 1: to think, you know, Gaston, he's like at this man's
Speaker 1: man and he's you know, the masculine ideal, but it's
Speaker 1: very toxic and it's so I guess it kind of
Speaker 1: succeeds in the Gaston area, But then with the main
Speaker 1: with the movies two title characters, it's just kind of
Speaker 1: like fart noise for me, you know, right, because with Guston,
Speaker 1: he is the embodiment of toxic masculinity. And I appreciate
Speaker 1: that his toxic masculine, his fragile male ego, his misogyny
Speaker 1: are all vilified. Like these are traits that he is
Speaker 1: openly displaying and the movie is showing you, look how
Speaker 1: bad this is. And I feel like the modern elements
Speaker 1: and started into that are some of them more like
Speaker 1: more effective ones in this adaptation, like the way that Gaston,
Speaker 1: the way that we're told that Gaston is a bad guy,
Speaker 1: and also the ways that we understand why people think
Speaker 1: he's a good guy. I feel like it kind of.
Speaker 1: It's still pretty much works for me, right, except for
Speaker 1: this one little thing. So, like the movie is like
Speaker 1: beauties in the eye of the beholder. You have to
Speaker 1: see someone's interviewed to a woman unless you and you
Speaker 1: better beautiful the whole damn time. So the reason that
Speaker 1: Gaston is designed to be like traditionally classically handsome is that, like,
Speaker 1: even though all the other towns people kind of fall
Speaker 1: under his like, oh what a handsome popular, like you know,
Speaker 1: quarterback of the football team kind of guy, but we
Speaker 1: all love even though he's horribly toxic, Bell doesn't fall
Speaker 1: for that because she sees that he has no inner beauty. Right,
Speaker 1: But it makes me wonder why does she not put
Speaker 1: up with Gaston's mistreatment of you know, her and the
Speaker 1: other people around, but she she does tolerate it In
Speaker 1: the beast, I like that. I mean, my guess is
Speaker 1: that goes back to the fairytale logic of Again, it's
Speaker 1: like whatever these stories are, so it doesn't work when
Speaker 1: you stretch it out for an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: But my guests would be that the beast with this
Speaker 1: story logic the Beast does two or three things to
Speaker 1: indicate that he could possibly change down the line, whereas
Speaker 1: Gaston does zero things and he doubles down in his
Speaker 1: negative qualities. That would be my guess, But it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still like it's a very simplistic way of approaching it.
Speaker 1: But I'm pretty sure that that's the vibe they're trying
Speaker 1: to strike there, and I don't know they're also it's
Speaker 1: so and then and then we haven't even talked about
Speaker 1: the staff. That's another fun thing where it's like you
Speaker 1: would think, you would think and maybe we even said
Speaker 1: this in our first past at this episode, oh, I
Speaker 1: want to know more about the lives of the working
Speaker 1: class you know, servants working in this castle. But again,
Speaker 1: if you want that sort of examination and discussion, you
Speaker 1: really just it can't be this story because if you
Speaker 1: add in. I found the way that they attempted to
Speaker 1: mitigate that issue in and adaptation to be horrifying and
Speaker 1: pretty jarring and like kind of upsetting to have to watch,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's like again it's like, whatever, this
Speaker 1: is the story. The story does frame all of the
Speaker 1: you know, household objects that used to be servants as
Speaker 1: side characters and sidekicks, and there is something to be
Speaker 1: said about, like, well, you know, why are are we
Speaker 1: making anyone who is poor very much a side character,
Speaker 1: except for I guess technically Bell, who doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: she's extremely well off because her father hasn't invented anything yet, right,
Speaker 1: But in any case, like, I think that there is
Speaker 1: something to be said for kind of the way that
Speaker 1: people of different classes are stylized in the way their
Speaker 1: stories are treated. But then in the movie they try
Speaker 1: to give like Loomire and Cogsworth backstories, but then it
Speaker 1: just becomes like so sad, it becomes really really upsetting
Speaker 1: because you just are constantly thinking about how their lives
Speaker 1: are on the line based on whether Bell tolerates abuse
Speaker 1: or not. And that's just kind of Ten Miles of
Speaker 1: Bad Road narratively, where it's like, oh, this woman who
Speaker 1: we know does not you know, she said at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the movie she doesn't want to be here,
Speaker 1: but now if she doesn't stay here, the like people
Speaker 1: are gonna die. In thee when we're at the end,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, where they like are They're all dying,
Speaker 1: Like they're like their faces are disappearing they're like turning
Speaker 1: to stone and you're like, this is not how I
Speaker 1: want Like, I guess I didn't want this. I guess
Speaker 1: I didn't want this. I want this, I didn't want it.
Speaker 1: It's really scary to look at and think about, and
Speaker 1: um and and again. It's by trying to address that,
Speaker 1: it puts more narrative pressure on Bell too theoretically act
Speaker 1: against her own interests of what she said she wanted, like, well,
Speaker 1: now she has to go back to the beast, whether
Speaker 1: he improves or not, or all of her friends are
Speaker 1: going to die. Like that's not a good vibe to
Speaker 1: bring into the chat. That's a huge sacrifice. Cartoons. She
Speaker 1: wasn't dealing with that little dark cloud over her head.
Speaker 1: That was really upsetting. At the end, I'm like, Emma Watson,
Speaker 1: you gotta get back there. Yeah, is dusting in that castle.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go save him. You're gonna let Audre McDonald die.
Speaker 1: I don't think, so go back to that pilot tennis ball.
Speaker 1: Stanley Tucci's keys aren't going to be able to play themselves.
Speaker 1: Any life is on the line here. Well, here's something
Speaker 1: I didn't pick up on in our first rendition of
Speaker 1: this episode that I find extremely troubling. No, some of
Speaker 1: the in fact, many of the lyrics to one of
Speaker 1: the best songs in the movie be Our Guest, are
Speaker 1: very fucked up because the lyrics are all about how
Speaker 1: the servants actually love being servants to the ruling class,
Speaker 1: and if they're not being servants to the ruling class,
Speaker 1: then their lives are actually pointless. And yes, I find
Speaker 1: that which is it's kind of like I was thinking
Speaker 1: for too. I just think that that's like a funny
Speaker 1: premise to try to update, because that would be kind
Speaker 1: of the cultural equivalent of like a barista thinking about like,
Speaker 1: if I'm not frothing up milk, I might as well
Speaker 1: be dead. Like that is kind of because it's like
Speaker 1: like they're they're working job, like no one is like
Speaker 1: if I can't froth milk, I wish to die. Like
Speaker 1: no one feels that way about their job. No one
Speaker 1: feels that way. What do we feel that way? Are we?
Speaker 1: Like if I can't pod, I might as well roll
Speaker 1: over and die. I do feel that way, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: my god. But like just I mean, I just also
Speaker 1: find it especially weird. I don't know when this story
Speaker 1: takes place in relation to the French Revolution, but like
Speaker 1: it's just so weird for this like French story to
Speaker 1: be like, yes, we the proletariat actually love serving the
Speaker 1: bourgeois class and if we can't do it, then we
Speaker 1: what are the lyrics? It's like life is so unnerving
Speaker 1: for a servant who's not serving, he's not whole without
Speaker 1: a soul to wait upon, like when especially when we
Speaker 1: know that like that that was an amazing point with
Speaker 1: like the especially in France in the eight hundreds. This
Speaker 1: is a weird vibe to be, you know, taking on.
Speaker 1: It's like, I mean, it's like having a bunch of
Speaker 1: people being like Jeff Bezos and he awesome, especially, but
Speaker 1: we know that their boss specifically is not nice to them,
Speaker 1: like really really mean to them, and we also it
Speaker 1: also is just like another I don't know the music
Speaker 1: and this movie is so beautiful, and it's also like
Speaker 1: some of Howard Ashman's like final work, and he's such
Speaker 1: an icon and this movie is dedicated to his memory
Speaker 1: because he I believe he passed away before it came out,
Speaker 1: and like he's just so amazing, and it feels like
Speaker 1: the lyrics from Howard Ashman and the screenplay are often
Speaker 1: in conflict because it's like Howard Ashman's lyrics say Bell
Speaker 1: wants more than this story says, actually, no, she doesn't.
Speaker 1: Lyrics say we love being members of the proletariat a
Speaker 1: fucking rocks, But the screenplay says that they really desperately
Speaker 1: want to be people again, so like they don't want
Speaker 1: to be dishes, which makes sense right, Like it's so
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of calm, I mean whatever, it's
Speaker 1: a kids movie, but there's definitely there's definitely conflict there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Here's also something that we I think we talked we
Speaker 1: touched on this in the first episode, but um of
Speaker 1: the enchanted objects, the quote female objects a k a.
Speaker 1: The characters who are voiced by voice actors who are women,
Speaker 1: tend to be traditionally like feminine objects. For example, feather dust, yes,
Speaker 1: cleaning supplies, cooking supplies, women a wardrobe because women be
Speaker 1: trying on clothes, you know, not like telling time that's
Speaker 1: a man that's job. Yes, yeah, yeah, like traditionally feminine.
Speaker 1: And that was another thing that the reboots sucked at,
Speaker 1: where they're like, Okay, we gotta make Bell a feminist icon.
Speaker 1: How do we do this? And then I heard that
Speaker 1: this was Emma Watson's idea, and I laughed and laughed
Speaker 1: and laughed, um until I cried. The like in the movie,
Speaker 1: Bell is also an inventor, but she invents laundry things,
Speaker 1: and that was Emma Watson's idea. She's like wow. She
Speaker 1: was like out here in interviews being like I told
Speaker 1: them Bell's got to make a laundry machine. And I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, all right, if you insist they did it. Um,
Speaker 1: it was weird, but they did it. Um. Yeah. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the like equating female voices with traditionally like female caretaking tasks.
Speaker 1: Another thing about the br guest song, and this has
Speaker 1: always bugged me. But so Belle skips dinner with the
Speaker 1: bast because he is uh, he wants her to starve
Speaker 1: and die. But then she doesn't eat. She goes downstairs
Speaker 1: because she's hungry. A bunch of food gets made and
Speaker 1: brought out, but she never we never see her eat
Speaker 1: any of it, except for like getting just like little
Speaker 1: tiny tastes of stuff. Thank you of her a doggy bag.
Speaker 1: I just I hope. So, but like, why are movies
Speaker 1: so against letting us see women eat on screen? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do see that to the point where the same
Speaker 1: thing happens in remake and if they fade the black,
Speaker 1: like like does she have sex with the pudding? Like
Speaker 1: why are we fading the black? What is this? They
Speaker 1: kind of make it a joke like where she is
Speaker 1: very desperately trying to like grab food to eat, but
Speaker 1: that keeps like prancing away because it's like dishes who
Speaker 1: have personalities or whatever. I hate that damn movie. I'm
Speaker 1: just like, well, then do it, do it or don't
Speaker 1: do it. Don't be a cute with me. Let us
Speaker 1: see bell eat. That's my main issue with this movie. No,
Speaker 1: but we don't really. Yeah, I mean she she drinks
Speaker 1: soup later on, yeah the fu Yeah that's her first
Speaker 1: meal is three days later she drinks she finally gets
Speaker 1: to eat some porridge. So that's too bad. Yeah that
Speaker 1: but that the animation and that scene is so beautiful,
Speaker 1: so good. It's so good. It's such a fun movie.
Speaker 1: I just I love it. Um yeah, So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of what else we got here. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess just going back into like we we've basically
Speaker 1: touched on this, but just the kind of inherent like
Speaker 1: I I felt almost like, uh, this is the wrong
Speaker 1: movie to equate it with, but the general energy of
Speaker 1: like a Revenge of the Nerds kind of redemption are
Speaker 1: going on with The Beast, where I feel like it's
Speaker 1: kind of pretty common in movies for a character that
Speaker 1: is treating a woman shitty at the beginning to um
Speaker 1: very intentionally say hey, if I do A B and C, like,
Speaker 1: I will have demonstrated enough growth to earn this woman
Speaker 1: and then I will have her and then she will
Speaker 1: be mine as my prize. Yeah, right, And I think
Speaker 1: that that is kind of how the Beasts storyline plays out,
Speaker 1: as he does one or two things to demonstrate growth,
Speaker 1: which is good, We're going in the right direction here,
Speaker 1: But then he's immediately quote unquote rewarded with the unconditional
Speaker 1: love of a woman whose forgiveness he has not necessarily earned, right,
Speaker 1: And I feel like that is like just kind of
Speaker 1: a thing that we see play out in real life
Speaker 1: over and over and over of like why did this thing?
Speaker 1: Why do you not? Why are you not my bride?
Speaker 1: It's like, know, that's just how like people who aren't
Speaker 1: assholes act like there isn't necessarily a prize in demonstrating
Speaker 1: personal growth. UM. Sometimes that is the prize is that
Speaker 1: you suck less. That's the prize is you're less of
Speaker 1: an asshole. Now you don't get something right, Beasts goes
Speaker 1: from being violent, abusive, scary too, just like being bare
Speaker 1: minimum decent. Like he nothing gets even established about why
Speaker 1: they might be compatible romantic partners. He just goes from
Speaker 1: being frightening to no longer being frightening. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's like we see like a little I I definitely
Speaker 1: see in the definitely not much of my own teen one,
Speaker 1: but the I see a capacity for growth. I don't
Speaker 1: think that he earns the love, the eternal love and
Speaker 1: trust of someone. Inside of a couple of days, it
Speaker 1: seems like he is on an arc towards being a
Speaker 1: better person, and in kind of more concrete ways, he's
Speaker 1: like having to challenge his own entitlement to people. And
Speaker 1: it's like, that's the message we're supposed to get when
Speaker 1: he quote unquote let's Bell go, even though she can
Speaker 1: technically whenever she wants whatever, um, when he lets her go,
Speaker 1: that's like an unselfish act that he does that we're
Speaker 1: supposed to be like, oh, okay, so he's behaving less
Speaker 1: entitled to access to people and access to people's time
Speaker 1: and attention, and like putting others someone's, someone else's interest
Speaker 1: before his own. That is as certainly a step, that's
Speaker 1: a step in the right direction. Great, sure, but yeah
Speaker 1: it's like but then immediately rewarding that one that one thing, um,
Speaker 1: but I mean in that that's not good, right? And
Speaker 1: I agree that he definitely demonstrates more capacity for growth
Speaker 1: than the other, the live action version and just in general.
Speaker 1: But even so, where's the compatibilit city between them, even
Speaker 1: if he grows and becomes a kind gentle person, what
Speaker 1: are they compatible about? Snowball snowballs? They both like throwing snowballs.
Speaker 1: They like to throw snowballs at each other, and they
Speaker 1: like to save each other from wolves, and thus is
Speaker 1: kind of and so I think if you can find
Speaker 1: someone like that, we really can't let him go. That's
Speaker 1: what I mean, a matchmate in heaven. I That's what
Speaker 1: really bothers me about a lot of romantic stories is
Speaker 1: that we've talked about this before. It's like, well, why
Speaker 1: do they like each other? Oh, because they're both hot
Speaker 1: and they're near each other. In this movie, it's one
Speaker 1: of them is hot and they're near each other, and
Speaker 1: well it's like even like yeah, and it's like and
Speaker 1: then they end up together because one is no longer
Speaker 1: being actively antagonistic, which is honestly more than we get
Speaker 1: in some movies, Like there are some romantic movies that
Speaker 1: end with one of the hot parties still being actively
Speaker 1: antagonistic to the other. True, but now it's cute because reasons. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I think compatibility gets skipped over a lot,
Speaker 1: and I think that romantic movies need to pay more
Speaker 1: attention to it. Well yeah, and it's again, that's like
Speaker 1: another thing that makes sense in the context of the
Speaker 1: fairy tale, where like everyone is like marriage was not
Speaker 1: necessarily a love game, but when they're applying the nineties
Speaker 1: values of marriage is very much a love game. Um.
Speaker 1: In an individual choice, the end game of the story
Speaker 1: ceases to make sense. Um, which is why they just
Speaker 1: write and just let them write an original story. Then yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I feel like, especially as time goes on,
Speaker 1: not that Disney is ever going to stop cashing this
Speaker 1: check for a billion dollars, it's just whatever, Like mindful adaptation.
Speaker 1: It's not impossible to adapt an old story with contemporary values,
Speaker 1: but you can't just kind of copy pay them in
Speaker 1: where it suits you, Like, there has to be meaningful
Speaker 1: adaptation choices made, or any level of scrutiny is going
Speaker 1: to cause the whole thing to kind of fall apart.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like that's definitely an example of where it
Speaker 1: falls apart. Here is like if we're coming at this
Speaker 1: from the like you marry for love, not for survival,
Speaker 1: um this the ending to this story makes no sense
Speaker 1: because they're not compatible. In the fairy tale, that probably
Speaker 1: mattered less, but in the theoretically that should that did matter?
Speaker 1: I did. I don't know. The movie is really good,
Speaker 1: but it's a mess. Does it pass the victal test?
Speaker 1: I think we decided that it's like sort of between
Speaker 1: her and the wardrobe, right, that was that was? Yes?
Speaker 1: I think maybe they or her and Bell and Mrs Potts,
Speaker 1: but I think it was like sort of kind of
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes. I think it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: it's like, even if they have a two line exchange
Speaker 1: where a man does not get explicitly mentioned, I think
Speaker 1: the text of every conversation is still about preventing the
Speaker 1: beast from murdering me today. Yeah, so I think either
Speaker 1: the beast or like Maurice is the context of every conversation. Sure,
Speaker 1: so I would say, considering context, I would give it
Speaker 1: a knot. I'm gonna give it a not. The nineteen
Speaker 1: one does pass the Bechtel test, but it's maybe the
Speaker 1: weirdest TV show I've ever watched in my life, the
Speaker 1: Linda Hamilton's one. Yeah, Yeah, Thelenda Hamilton's one. You gotta
Speaker 1: watch it. I'll give you my CBS all access password. Um,
Speaker 1: and then you can watch Picard. But yeah, I would,
Speaker 1: I would. I would recommend watching an upisode of it
Speaker 1: because it's so eighties. And also Ron Perlman is like
Speaker 1: acting through the makeup, and I'm like, whoever the funk
Speaker 1: is in? Did you not watch Ron Perlman? He transcended
Speaker 1: the makeup, Jim Carrey transcends the Grinch makeup. Why can't
Speaker 1: you transcend the makeup? Whoever you are? It's just strange.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and then I think that the adaptation does
Speaker 1: pass the Bactel test, but it's still, um, sucks, so bad,
Speaker 1: so flawed. Metro movie. Also, The Thing Went does one
Speaker 1: of my least favorite tropes on movies that are like
Speaker 1: trying to be feminist but actually very much or not
Speaker 1: um where they're like, the patriarchy is one guy. Look
Speaker 1: at him, he's not nice. Like, it's just one guy
Speaker 1: who's mean, and it has not there's no systemic anything.
Speaker 1: It's just one guy. It's like, well, then kill that guy.
Speaker 1: If we're that easy, we would just kill that guy.
Speaker 1: To be perfectly honest, that guy would simply be killed.
Speaker 1: But that's not how you can throw him into a ravine. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, Gaston and that guy are the only
Speaker 1: misogynists in France, Well let's get rid of them. Like,
Speaker 1: but that's just not how. But whatever, that's movie logic.
Speaker 1: I love Luke Evans where I've Evans, Mr Guston. He's great.
Speaker 1: He can sing, he can dance. After all, this this
Speaker 1: is France, it's true. He's also in Fast and Furious six,
Speaker 1: he was in ma He's in a lot of fun movies. Wow,
Speaker 1: I still have to see ma. Um he got a Sea.
Speaker 1: I'm looking through just to see if I have any
Speaker 1: funnel things. Um do me? I mean, it's almost hardly
Speaker 1: worth mentioning. But Bells mom is not lie. She's dead.
Speaker 1: And then in the movie they give context for it,
Speaker 1: and it's like why it doesn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with anything. It doesn't go anywhere. It's and again it's
Speaker 1: just like copy paste adaptation brain of like, oh this
Speaker 1: was the problem, let's just paste in an explanation for
Speaker 1: it and people will be satisfied. It's like, no, you
Speaker 1: need to build it up from the bank. Like I
Speaker 1: don't even object to adding a storyline with a mother
Speaker 1: as a backstory for help, but you can't just be like,
Speaker 1: here it is, here's the worst song you've ever heard
Speaker 1: in your wife, So uh, like you can't just paste
Speaker 1: it and you need to like go back to like
Speaker 1: build the story from the ground up with that as
Speaker 1: an integral part of it. You can just add it
Speaker 1: at the end or it doesn't work. So I kind
Speaker 1: of like slightly object to like the whole like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't change anything when you're updating to the live adaptation.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, change things, but you can't just
Speaker 1: like add it as a little flourish and like a
Speaker 1: wink and a nod at the end. It needs to
Speaker 1: actually have like a meaningful like if you whatever, it's
Speaker 1: just like basic writing, Like if you took it out
Speaker 1: of the story and nothing changes, then you need to
Speaker 1: go back and have it matter, like, yes, that's all,
Speaker 1: that's all it is. Yeah. Yeah. The live action remake
Speaker 1: does something kind of similar with clearly like Disney got
Speaker 1: the note, has been getting the note, Hey, maybe not
Speaker 1: have so many just only white people in your story.
Speaker 1: So they do seem to make an attempt to include
Speaker 1: some more diversity because there now are some black people
Speaker 1: in the town, there are some black actors voicing some
Speaker 1: of the enchanted objects, but it's the same kind of
Speaker 1: thing where the characters are pretty secondary or tertiary. They
Speaker 1: are not important, they're not among like the core cast.
Speaker 1: So I think my main takeaway from watching the ninety
Speaker 1: one and I feel like, even though the ninety one
Speaker 1: movie in terms of like quality is vastly superior, you
Speaker 1: kind of see like the same types of mistakes made
Speaker 1: in both where they just kind of like take an
Speaker 1: old story and then put like the Instagram filter lens
Speaker 1: of the year it's coming out on top of it
Speaker 1: without meaningfully building in those values into their rewrite of
Speaker 1: the story. And I think probably is even worse because
Speaker 1: it's like a rewrite of a rewrite and so it
Speaker 1: just gets even more like chaos. But it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just it's I don't know, there's such a dearth of
Speaker 1: like good adaptations that like consider the context of the
Speaker 1: time is being released into into it coming out, and
Speaker 1: it's like either adapt an old as story with and
Speaker 1: just do it and have it have you know, old
Speaker 1: values that kind of speak to no one and just
Speaker 1: do that, or you know, try try a little harder,
Speaker 1: a little harder. Yeah, the reveal that like Lafu is
Speaker 1: gay at the end because he dances for one second
Speaker 1: with a man, it's not that's like but that's like
Speaker 1: a perfect example of that, like the Instagram filter of
Speaker 1: like updated right, because we did these two things with
Speaker 1: like barely that's good enough, right, And it's like, no, Disney,
Speaker 1: it's not. It isn't it distant And it's not like
Speaker 1: there couldn't be a gay character meaningfully included in this story.
Speaker 1: There's like it's a broad enough story that there's a
Speaker 1: room to do that, like, but but they just didn't.
Speaker 1: So they just I mean, and that's I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm just kind of like done expecting them at
Speaker 1: Disney adaptation, especially at Disney adaptation of a Disney adaptation, right,
Speaker 1: is going to do anything um super meaningful sometimes they do.
Speaker 1: Most of the time they don't. I don't go and
Speaker 1: expecting them that they will. That said, though, I would
Speaker 1: say that this ninety one version is is a good
Speaker 1: example of being a stepping stone movie almost that allows
Speaker 1: us to track specifically like disney Fairytale animated movie progress,
Speaker 1: where like Beauty and the Beast is more feminist than say,
Speaker 1: snow White, which came out several decades before Beauty and
Speaker 1: the Beast, but it is also like less feminist than
Speaker 1: something like Moana, which came out years after ninety one
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast, And even Moanna has things in
Speaker 1: it now that it's like, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I would give Moanna five nipples if we covered
Speaker 1: it now instead of four years ago. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's with Dinny, It's always going to be a commerce
Speaker 1: game in a way that it is, like, even though
Speaker 1: it's sometimes frustrating to consume, I feel like it's an
Speaker 1: interesting historical yardstick because Disney is never not going to
Speaker 1: do what's going to make them like. They're always going
Speaker 1: to do what's going to make them the most money,
Speaker 1: and they're going to play to whatever they need to
Speaker 1: to cast the widest that they can to get the
Speaker 1: most people's money that they can, and so any movie
Speaker 1: that comes out is going to reflect that, and so
Speaker 1: they so become products of their time. And so it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, snow White is reflecting nineteen thirty or ninety
Speaker 1: seven values. You need the beasts reflecting values in the
Speaker 1: most commercial sense. Moanna is going to reflect values and
Speaker 1: the most commercial sense possible. They're never not going to
Speaker 1: do what's not going to make them the most billions
Speaker 1: of dollars. And then and it just sometimes it's going
Speaker 1: to be done in a good faith, beautiful artistic way,
Speaker 1: as I feel like it is in the movie at
Speaker 1: many times, at many moments. And then you're just going
Speaker 1: to get some real farts and boy, it's been two hours.
Speaker 1: Let's d do do do do do um? What would
Speaker 1: you rate this on our nipple scale, our scale of
Speaker 1: zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares
Speaker 1: looking at it from an intersectional feminist lens, um, I
Speaker 1: don't know one or one and a half. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess maybe maybe one. I mean I guess I would
Speaker 1: say it's weird because it's like I still I'm trying
Speaker 1: not to come in with a nostalgia opinion here. I
Speaker 1: guess I'll go one and half. I think that the
Speaker 1: issues with this movie are very much rooted in adaptation.
Speaker 1: I like Bell. I'm rooting for Bell. I think she
Speaker 1: is a very strongly motivated character whose agency is kind
Speaker 1: of pulled back and back and back as the movie
Speaker 1: goes on, and I want more for her. But it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like this Bell in particular.
Speaker 1: It's like people really clung to her for a reason,
Speaker 1: and which is that she like expressed such a universal
Speaker 1: sentiment of like wanting more in the world, And um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I guess I'm I'm kind of
Speaker 1: stuck on a one and a half. Where are you at?
Speaker 1: I'm prepared to give it even a little higher. I
Speaker 1: was going to come in with a two. Nice even
Speaker 1: if you know, does the movie deserve it? I'm not
Speaker 1: sure does the Beast deserve to be forgiven by bellserve
Speaker 1: Bell's I just I want, I like I just I'm
Speaker 1: always rooting about Also, I think it's worth mentioning that
Speaker 1: Bell is kind of the first Disney princess who is
Speaker 1: like definitively an adult, which is kind of nice. There's
Speaker 1: that that was like a discussion that comes up in
Speaker 1: Disney princess discourse as well. It's like, for the most part, um,
Speaker 1: Disney princesses are teenagers. Um it is. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's ever explicitly stated in the movie, but I
Speaker 1: guess canonically Bell is an adult woman, which I feel
Speaker 1: it gives good. Yes, that is good, um to not
Speaker 1: be releasing movies where teenagers are getting married off in
Speaker 1: century that seems generally positive. So I appreciate that she
Speaker 1: is an adult woman making decisions in an impossible world.
Speaker 1: I just yeah, I guess I'll go one and a
Speaker 1: half this time. But I just I love her. I
Speaker 1: want more for her. I wish that this movie was
Speaker 1: couldn't make up its mind of where it wants to be.
Speaker 1: Like I like a lot of the I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just it clashes so much the the beauty binary
Speaker 1: rigidity comes. It doesn't hold up in certainly not in
Speaker 1: a feature length twentieth century format. Um. It made me
Speaker 1: miss Shrek. So take from that what you will. Um.
Speaker 1: And I was like thinking about Shrek so much. Um,
Speaker 1: And well, I mean we must ever forget Shreck, right,
Speaker 1: It's well, we will never forget Shrek. We're always thinking
Speaker 1: about where's the T shirt? Never forget Shrek. There's it's
Speaker 1: got to be we have, you know, I'm saying, are
Speaker 1: we have? You have to make it? You have to
Speaker 1: make it. Oh my god, what I'm saying. I've done
Speaker 1: enough Shrek. I've done enough Shrek art in this lifetime. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I I guess. I it's almost frustrating that
Speaker 1: we have kind of a Rarety and Disney cannon where
Speaker 1: we have a strong, lee motivated female character who is
Speaker 1: intelligent and knows her values at the core of the story.
Speaker 1: We're normally we kind of don't have that. We kind
Speaker 1: of have like a young woman who has an idea
Speaker 1: of what she wants, but like it's it's usually connected
Speaker 1: to romantic love. That's not bellt goal. She has goals
Speaker 1: beyond that. But then she gets the same endgame as
Speaker 1: anyone else would. So I feel like she's just kind
Speaker 1: of cheated out of the ending that you would want
Speaker 1: for her. I love her, And this movie is so
Speaker 1: beautiful and iconic in its way, you know, shout out
Speaker 1: to absolute legend Howard Ashman Forever. Yeah, I guess And
Speaker 1: and then but but it's like the dynamics of the
Speaker 1: Bell Beast relationship are never gonna sit well with me.
Speaker 1: I am all for a story about forgiveness. I think
Speaker 1: that that, especially now, could be like a really impactful
Speaker 1: narrative to present, But this just kind of isn't the
Speaker 1: one where you feel like someone has really earned it
Speaker 1: by the end of the story. Yes, so yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: one and a half. Oh go everything you said, And
Speaker 1: that as much as I like Bell, I wish she
Speaker 1: had been characterized a little bit differently, just in that
Speaker 1: she could have been given an area of growth or
Speaker 1: like potential growth that we I would have liked to
Speaker 1: have seen, so that it's there's not so much of
Speaker 1: a burden on her to just like except mediocrity all
Speaker 1: around her and like not even me, like verbal abuse
Speaker 1: and like the beast throwing furniture around all like she
Speaker 1: just tolerates so much. And I like you said that
Speaker 1: that dynamic even if he stops being abusive, like that's
Speaker 1: not enough to warrant a romance, a like loving relationship, right,
Speaker 1: there's even a way to like if they need that,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like even if they need Belle and
Speaker 1: the Beast to end up together at the end, there's
Speaker 1: a way to say, like and now they're on a
Speaker 1: path towards forgiveness, versus like and now I am married
Speaker 1: to you, and we are married today and I love
Speaker 1: you forever. Like there's a there if they're going with
Speaker 1: these nineties values, maybe you know, ended by having it
Speaker 1: seemed like and things might actually work out here. I
Speaker 1: guess we'll see she's gonna because I feel like it's
Speaker 1: it's a satisfying enough arc to have her give him
Speaker 1: a second chance. Period. He hasn't even really earned a
Speaker 1: second chance, much less eternal love, you know, but it's
Speaker 1: like a second chance would at least be a more
Speaker 1: palatable end game than right, especially like it's the whole
Speaker 1: you know, the fairy tale. Like it's like, well, what
Speaker 1: do you expect. It's a fairy tale. This is how
Speaker 1: fairy tales are you you fall in love and you
Speaker 1: live happily ever after, and you don't have to see
Speaker 1: that they're compatible. They're just they're near each other, so
Speaker 1: they're in love. But it's like, well, yeah, but when
Speaker 1: you're adapting a fairy tale in the late twentieth century
Speaker 1: and then again in the early twenty one century, like
Speaker 1: our cultural values have progressed a little bit beyond you know, uh,
Speaker 1: fairy tale values. So it can't have it. You just
Speaker 1: can't have it always. But they're never going to stop.
Speaker 1: But again, it's like I guess they can't because they
Speaker 1: have a billion dollars show that they showed us in
Speaker 1: another I bet in another like thirty years, they're going
Speaker 1: to re adapt it, and it's just gonna be a
Speaker 1: cycle of shitty adaptation after shifty adaptation. I do love
Speaker 1: this movie, Um, I know I love it, So I
Speaker 1: like the nine one one in spite of all the
Speaker 1: flaws we've been talking about for two hours, is a
Speaker 1: perfect movie. So I don't make the rules. Just is
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah, I'll stick with my too, even
Speaker 1: though I think I'm being a little too generous. Two nips,
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm giving them. I'm giving them to
Speaker 1: I'm giving one to Bell. I'm giving want half a
Speaker 1: nip to one of those hungry wolves. So we're trying
Speaker 1: to just fed those wolves and feed that wolf. Happen nipple.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give both of my nipples to Stanley Tucci
Speaker 1: in the live action remake. I love it. There you go, Stanley,
Speaker 1: There you go. Family, hope you're happy. Happy now, Stanley,
Speaker 1: all right, well there we there you go. So we
Speaker 1: did it. We've reckoned with our past and fully a
Speaker 1: more nuanced conversation than we had. You'll never know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: welcome to We have a bunch of exciting episodes planned
Speaker 1: and thanks for being here. You can always follow us
Speaker 1: on line. You can follow us at batl Cast on
Speaker 1: Twitter or Instagram. Follow your heart can also uh. You
Speaker 1: can also sign up for our Patreon aka Matreon, where
Speaker 1: each and every month you can get two additional bonus
Speaker 1: episodes for a mere five additional dollars out of your life.
Speaker 1: And you can check out our merch store at t
Speaker 1: public dot com slash the effectel Cast, where you know
Speaker 1: there is a noticeable absence of Shrek merch, but Wow
Speaker 1: literally bullied into making Shrek merch. You're gonna regret. You're
Speaker 1: gonna rue the day that I post my Shrek lingerie
Speaker 1: to our Instagram without warning. I very talk. I won't
Speaker 1: the day I will. You will rule the day. I
Speaker 1: love it? Um anyway, Yeah, you can find us there,
Speaker 1: and you know what, give us a little rate and
Speaker 1: review on iTunes. Why don't you? Hey, hey, couldn't hurt.
Speaker 1: Could It won't hurt you a bit. It won't hurt,
Speaker 1: It'll make you feel good. And um on that note,
Speaker 1: do do do do do Do Do Do Do Do Do
Speaker 1: do do do do by do by bye,